


The Travellers Affair

by georgiamagnolia



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Case Fic, Early in Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-04
Updated: 2011-11-04
Packaged: 2017-10-25 16:39:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 39,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgiamagnolia/pseuds/georgiamagnolia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agents have gone missing and mysterious things are happening in the woods so Alexander Waverly sends two of his newest and brightest out to investigate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Travellers Affair

PROLOGUE

“Your conference call is ready, Mr. Waverly.”

“Thank you, Miss Prichard,” he picked up the phone on his desk and was greeted with four other voices, the top men in the UNCLE command chain.

“Gentlemen, thank you for agreeing to this call, though I know the timing is difficult,” Waverly began. “This situation is getting more alarming and I felt we needed to address it together, and before our Summit in the Autumn.”

There was a general agreement and Waverly continued, “We have lost two teams to this threat and a third is missing and presumed lost, after a THRUSH ambush at their pick-up rendezvous. We have ruled out any information leak, and the teams were each from different commands. I might have believed a leak one time, but in three offices at once? No, gentlemen, we have a bigger problem. THRUSH somehow knows when we are coming and they know it independent of us. This will not be easy to investigate, but we have never let that stop us.”

All four voices rose in alarm, protest, disbelief. Waverly cut through the babble. “Gentlemen, please, I have a plan and you must hear me out. There is one group of people who come and go in the region with no notice whatsoever. I will plant my newest team with them and this will give us the best chance we have to observe and, with some luck, determine what the threat is from THRUSH.”

After the call and Waverly had convinced his fellow command leaders that this was the best way, he drew the letter out of his desk drawer. The hand delivered letter had confirmed that his men would be made welcome and taught what would be needed. The personal greeting at the end had made him smile, the object sent along with the letter had surprised him. _‘I kept this for you, hoping that one day you might reclaim it, know that you and yours will be held as safe.’_ Alexander held the small leather pouch, and it felt like it had never been gone from his hand.

CHAPTER ONE

Waverly spun the conference table until dossiers ended up in front of both Solo and Kuryakin. Once they had opened the files and looked over the information Mr. Waverly started talking. "Gentlemen, I have an undercover assignment for you, one that will take some preparation of a particular nature, and for it you must spend some time in the wilds of Umbria, or maybe Tuscany.” If Alexander seemed a little more distracted than they were used to seeing him, neither agent commented. “It will depend on where our traveling allies are this time of year." 

Napoleon immediately started thinking of a lovely country house in the middle of an Italian Spring. Illya started thinking about pasta. 

"Conditions will be rough," Waverly continued, "and then once you are ready to go on this mission, rougher still. I am sorry to say that you will need to be making a water crossing, Mr. Kuryakin. The medical section has prepared some new sea sickness medications to try out." 

Illya stopped the sigh he felt building. Napoleon suppressed one as well, for other reasons entirely. 

"You have all the information you will need for now there in those dossiers. We will meet tomorrow afternoon before you leave for one last briefing, I suggest you study these closely. You will find that some bags have been packed for you, they are already in your office. Familiarize yourself with the file and your new personas. This will necessarily be a long assignment, please take some time in the morning to settle things in preparation, I expect it will be several months before your return.” He looked up from the object he had been staring at in his hand, thumb still rubbing absently across the soft leather like a worry stone. “I will see you back here tomorrow at 1500. Prepare for a long excursion." He dismissed them, hoping that their meeting tomorrow would not be the last.

***

"Not quite up to your usual standards," Illya sounded too amused for Napoleon's taste as he held up the faded black denim pants and rough work shirt. The battered haversack was filled with more like them. At the bottom he found a worn but serviceable pair of boots, fitted for knives. Illya found much the same in his bag. They both found vests, tailored to cover a shoulder holster and with hidden pockets for communicators and any other toys they may need. 

"I will have you know that one memorable Summer in my youth, Aunt Amy decided that we needed to have a ‘True West’ experience. We took a train to some square state in the hinterlands and spent three months at a dude ranch. I learned to rope and ride and be a cowboy. I even trained a colt or two that Summer. And after a few cracked ribs I managed to make my mentor proud." Napoleon sounded his usual smug self. He continued to repack the bag, "I am not sure what the Old Man is thinking making me the horse trader, your linguistic skill is much better than mine. Although my Italian is impeccable." 

"Only when you are talking to a tailor or cobbler," Illya jabbed. 

Napoleon gave his partner a look and sniffed. “Not much chance of that this trip. Maybe you’d better start teaching me some basic phrases, I don’t want to be too out in the dark.”

“I’m afraid we’re both going to be out, in the dark and in the cold.”

***

They had reported the following afternoon as requested and Mr. Waverly had still been in a quiet mood, almost pensive. He had greeted them more warmly than was usual as well. He invited them into his private office and the three of them sat down around Alexander’s desk. 

“Gentlemen, I know you are aware that we are expendable to the causes UNCLE stands for, even myself. I know you have sworn your loyalty to these causes and to UNCLE.” He looked up at them, long moments of looking deeply at them, until they wondered what he was seeing. Finally, he continued, “I would very much like to see the two of you return, not just because I suspect that THRUSH has devised some new and terrible plan that we must stop, but because,” he paused again, taking a drink of the tea his secretary had left for them. “I value your dedication to UNCLE. I’d like to see it continue.” He seemed uncomfortable with these revelations and yet determined to continue. “I have done all that I can to give you the best possible way into the region. As you read in the files I gave you, THRUSH seems to have a strangle hold there. The only people they have not tried to subjugate in the area are the traveling bands, the Romany, those known as gypsies to the uninformed and bigoted. The Rom are a law unto themselves, a very old people, proud and strong. For some reason THRUSH has discounted them. I hope that will be to our advantage.” 

Alexander took out his pipe and set about filling it. Napoleon dared a sidelong look at Illya, who was looking as puzzled as Napoleon felt. Mr. Waverly just didn’t get personal, not like this. Illya gave the faintest shrug, Napoleon mirrored it. They both faced forward as Alexander continued.

“In my long ago youth,” he glanced up from his pipe, “yes, I had one, I was trapped on the wrong side of a border, injured and alone. It was my good fortune to be found not by my enemies, but by a group of horse traders. They took me in and for some reason they decided they liked me. They gave me shelter until I healed from my wounds and could travel. In return I did what I could for them, which wasn’t as much as they deserved. But they were good to me. It is very unusual for these people to trust outsiders, ever, but their spiritual leader saw something in me, something salvageable, I suppose. They made me one of their own. Perhaps in another time or in another band the scandal of their actions would have been too much and I would have been left to suffer whatever fate my enemies would have dished out, but it was a time of war when allies are often strange combinations of peoples who would not normally have much in common. Their ways are not our ways. They have a code, an old one that they will not abandon.” Alexander paused to strike a match and nurse his pipe to life. “I send you to these people, to my people.” He reached in his coat pocket and again pulled something out, “I have done what I can to give you the best chance there is, the only chance there may be to succeed.”

***

They caught their flight, a chartered UNCLE jet, and spent their time studying the meager information they had; three teams of UNCLE agents down in a remote region that may have been Yugoslavia or may have been Hungary. There may have been a leak of information or a mole but it was unlikely after having been investigated. Their contact would be meeting them near a private airstrip and they would disappear into the Italian countryside to learn to live among the Rom, with whom they would travel and live and work and, they hoped, learn what THRUSH was doing on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Remembering the conversation later as they flew over the night dark Atlantic, Napoleon thought it might have been the most he had ever heard Mr. Waverly say on any subject. He wondered what the object was he had kept holding even while they solidified plans and left for the airstrip. He looked over at his partner to ask if he had gotten a glimpse, but Illya was asleep. He leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to put the oddness out of his mind and relax before the engines of the plane changed timbre in preparation to descend and land.

CHAPTER TWO

Somewhere in Northern Italy, a jet landed just as dawn was waking the surrounding countryside. Two agents left the jet with luggage and an escort. They entered the small building that served as an office where another pair of agents waited. Not long after that, two men left the building, carrying the same suitcases and escorted by the same man. Their escort stood at the bottom of the foldout stairs from the jet scanning the landscape as the blond and the brunet climbed up and in. The jet had been refueled and as soon as the escort was in and shut the door, the plane was on the move, headed for the end of the runway. It took off with a rush of sound and soon the silence of dawn resumed. 

“There we go, partner.”

“And here we are.”

“With no passports, plenty of local currency and a date with a mysterious stranger.”

“You make it sound so appealing, Napoleon.”

Napoleon grinned at the look his partner gave him, equal measures of annoyance and humour, a look he inspired often. 

Illya consulted his disguised watch, which also had a compass and in a pinch could detonate the explosives hidden in a secret pocket of his knapsack. They wouldn’t leave home without some kind of defenses. “It is almost time to leave, we’d better finish up here.”

Napoleon turned from the single window back to the table where the other UNCLE agents had left them breakfast. He and Illya had changed clothes when they entered the office, stashing their suits in the empty suitcases after they had removed their undercover backpacks. Dressed in rough work clothes that would blend in with their new temporary home, they finished the rolls and coffee, cleaned up after themselves and locked the door as they left. 

“Our contact is somewhere due North, in those woods.” Illya gestured and Napoleon hefted his rucksack over his shoulder, turned and started walking. The sun slowly crept higher as the two men walked shoulder to shoulder through the still dew wet grass toward the treeline ahead.

Though the sun was over the horizon, the woods were still night cool and dim, the men slowed to keep their own noise down as well to listen for anyone approaching. Their contact should be close by, but all they had was a code word and response between them and whatever or whoever else might be lurking in the woods, though Napoleon couldn’t immediately think of any large animals they might need to watch out for in these woods. He remembered that there might be wild boars though, he hoped they slept in. 

Napoleon heard the noise at the same moment that Illya put a hand on his elbow to halt their forward movement. With silent signals they split up to move forward within the cover of the trees. In a few minutes they came to a clearing on either side of a dirt track. A very old jeep was parked there and a very young man sat on the hood, humming while he carved a piece of wood, his concentration taken entirely with the work at hand. Another silent conversation took place between the partners and Illya stepped forward.

“ _Sastipe,_ ” Illya said softly.

The young man looked up, alarmed. He dropped both the carving and the small knife he was using. He started speaking fast and excited and Illya had trouble following. Napoleon didn’t recognize any of the words at all.

Illya held his empty hands out in front of himself, gesturing for the excited young man to be calm, speaking softly and slowly, first in the Rom dialect he knew and then in Italian, knowing Napoleon would understand it and likely so would the young man. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

The young man took a deep breath and switched to Italian. “It is for me to be sorry, I was supposed to watch. You are here from across the sea, yes?”

“We have traveled a great distance.”

“You are sons of the Turtle, yes?”

Napoleon and Illya exchanged a look, clearly saying without a word _‘who thinks up these pass codes?’_ and Napoleon answered the young man as he was instructed, “We bring greetings to the Turtle’s people.”

The young man was all smiles as he slid from the jeep hood and picked up his dropped carving knife and the small piece of wood he had been working. He pocketed both and gestured at the jeep, babbling away again before remembering himself and saying slowly in Rom and then repeating in Italian, “Please, we go now. It is a long drive until lunch.”

Piled in the jeep with their rucksacks, they took off at a fast clip, Illya in front next to the young driver and Napoleon in back. 

“So what’s the determination, partner mine, are we on a wild goose chase as of now?”

Illya turned in his seat and gave Napoleon a shrug. “If nothing else, it will be an interesting vacation if we fail miserably to blend in.” 

***

The sun was directly overhead when the young man finally pulled the old jeep off the trail and under the shade of some low branches of the surrounding trees. Conversation had been problematic in the open Jeep and the sudden silence seemed jarring. 

“Lunch!” Emil announced and bounced from the Jeep to dig around behind the back seat for a basket. The agents gratefully left the Jeep to stretch and scope out the surroundings. Illya was studying the trail while Napoleon poked about on the perimeter of the little clearing. There were no signs of humans and the only tracks Illya could see were one solitary set of tire tracks that matched the Jeep they were in. 

Emil started to set out lunch and then began chattering away until he saw the way Illya was trying not to laugh at the look on Napoleon’s face. Emil started again in Italian. “My apologies, I have already forgotten,” he smiled an apology to Napoleon. “I was saying that lunch is only some sandwiches but there will be a lot of dinner tonight. There will be music and celebration. _La Strega e Tillio,_ they say you are like long lost _cugino_ , we must make you like our own, _si_?” 

Emil finished unpacking the basket and then as he handed each thing out he would hold it up and look at Napoleon, saying the name of the item in his own language and then handing it to Napoleon. Illya and Emil compared languages, as Illya’s own Rom dialect was slightly different, so all three learned some new things during lunch. 

While Emil was putting the remains of lunch back in the Jeep, Napoleon turned to Illya, “So we are long lost cousins, are we?”

“It will be the only way that many of the old timers will accept us. The Rom are very insular, very private. It will help explain why none of the neighboring bands have heard of us. I suppose we might be from some lost family from the war years. With luck, nobody will ask.”

“We go?” Emil called from the Jeep.

“ _Va,_ ” Napoleon agreed. Emil grinned wide at Napoleon’s success at using his new Rom language skills. 

By the middle of the afternoon they had found their way onto a paved road, but it was still very much in a rural setting with little traffic. They passed through a few little towns and finally stopped on the outskirts of one, at a filling station. A young man came out and when he saw who was there, called something back over his shoulder to the interior of the little building and then continued forward. 

The young men exchanged greetings and then continued to talk in quiet Italian while Napoleon and Illya again alighted and stretched their legs, keeping an eye on the young men as well as the surroundings. 

“You realize that we are leaving behind any semblance of modern plumbing. Do you suppose that there is a key to the washroom available?”

“Why do you suppose I was so long in arriving at the office, I was having a last shower.” Napoleon smiled.

Illya moved off to ask Emil, who was obviously familiar with the place. There was a washroom around a corner and the two men took turns using it while the other stood outside the door to watch. Nobody seemed to pay very much attention to them. Emil came over and took his turn, smiling at the partners and their caution. 

“Is safe here, they are friends,” Emil said when he emerged to find Illya watching the Jeep while Napoleon waited for him outside.

Emil went inside the front of the station then came back with a large box that he put in the back of the Jeep, following him was the other young man with an equally large box. Emil helped him situate it in the backseat of the Jeep, then they said a smiling goodbye and Emil resumed his position behind the wheel while Illya and Napoleon settled back in the vehicle. Emil had started the engine and they were off again with the wind rushing by them before either of the partners could ask about the boxes. 

Shortly they again left the paved road for a barely there track and in another half an hour or so were pulling up under some trees next to a truck of similar vintage to the Jeep. Immediately they were surrounded by bodies, half a dozen children of various ages clambered at Emil’s side of the Jeep. A young woman with a child on her hip followed, her tone of voice obviously admonishing the children who ignored her in favor of the candy that Emil took from his pocket and passed out to them. She smiled when Emil handed her the last piece and the children ran off still laughing and calling one another at top volume. 

“You spoil them, Emil,” her voice was soft and held no rebuke.

Emil grinned, unrepentant, “And you never do?” 

The young woman only smiled and turned to follow the children who were perhaps her charges.

Illya and Napoleon had shouldered their backpacks and were helping Emil with the boxes when a couple approached. Emil saw them and started talking excitedly.

“Emil,” the old woman interrupted him, then spoke in Italian, “Emil, our guests do not have our language.”

“So sorry, _Nonna,_ I forget.” 

The old woman smiled at him, “It is forgiven. Go now, the young ones will want to open the boxes, they have waited all day, and patiently.” 

“ _Si, Nonna_ ,” Emil grinned and heaved a box onto his shoulder while the man who had accompanied the old woman took the other. 

The old woman watched them for a moment and then turned to the agents, still standing there observing it all.

“You are Alexander’s men.” 

Napoleon and Illya both hid their surprise at the English she used, and Napoleon answered her in the same.

“We are. I am Napoleon Solo and this is my partner, Illya Kuryakin.” Napoleon nodded to her and gestured to Illya who did the same. 

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Illya said, then continued to speak words that Napoleon didn’t understand until he heard _parli Italiano et Francais,_ and then the old woman was smiling broadly. 

Another man hurried up to them, making apologetic sounds to the woman. He spoke in Italian. “I am so sorry, _Strega_ ,” he addressed the woman, then turned to the men. “I was to be here when you arrived and I was… it’s foaling season.” As if that explained everything.

“It is understandable, Alessandro, have you a new one?”

“Almost, _Nonna_. Soon.”

“Alessandro, my grandson, he is what you would call our stable-master. I tell him that mares have foaled since time began very successfully on their own, but he is not believing me.”

Alessandro started speaking to the smiling woman and Illya translated what he could for Napoleon, into English. “It seems that this is an ongoing debate between the woman and her menfolk, and they seem to be amused by the argument, so we shouldn’t worry about bloodshed quite yet.”

“Good to know, I think bloodshed would be a very bad omen for the mission.” The two exchanged grins as the others stopped the debate and again addressed them in Italian. 

“Alessandro is worried that _B’stelle_ has problems as she has waited so long to give us her little one.”

“She is a stubborn mare.”

“Aren’t they all?” Napoleon asked under his breath.

Illya shot him a look, then addressed the stable-master, “Should we begin our studies by helping you with this foaling?”

“Oh, no, you are settling in tonight, tomorrow we work you like dogs, _si_?” he laughed.

Illya and Napoleon exchanged a look.

“This has been a strange start, has it not. Let us begin again.” The woman put her hand on Alessandro’s arm. “You are here because our lost _cugino_ Alexander has asked for help only we may give, and so you will be with us until the High Summer. Then we send you back out into the world.” There was a moment where her face seemed sad, but she continued, “Alessandro, this is Napoleon and Illya, we will teach them and make them welcome. The Turtle has sent them into our keeping. He honours us with his trust.” Her words seemed formal and yet welcoming. Alessandro smiled at them again, he seemed to smile frequently, as if a sunny nature was the only one he cared to have. There were laugh lines on his face and they suited him. 

“Then let us start by showing them their new home, and dinner will be soon, the girls were chattering over it as I came through.”

  
_“NonnaStrega!”_   


one of the smaller children from earlier came running, then stopped when she saw the strangers. 

“Yes, T’nia?” the old woman turned to the child.

“Lucia says I must bring you, a woman comes from the village.”

“Run and tell Lucia I will be along. Tell her to make tea for the woman.” When the girl had turned and run back where she came from, the woman turned back to the agents. “Alessandro will show you about our _carovana_ , and I will see you at dinner. I must attend to some work of my own now.” She turned and followed the child.

“Alessandro?” Napoleon asked as they also went in the direction the child had gone, “She never told us her name. Is it Strega?”

Alessandro turned back to them and for a moment seemed puzzled. “She is Strega. She is, ah, you would say, wise, yes?” He seemed to be trying to translate something in his head. “She is our heart, Strega. _Tillio_ , he is leader. _Strega_ , she is center.” 

Illya said something in Rom and again Alessandro smiled like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. “ _Si,_ yes, like this!”

They continued to walk and Illya explained, “Strega is a title, roughly translated it means wise woman or wisdom; she is the spiritual leader of this group. Tillio is also a title, in this case, her son is the head of the family group that is in charge. These serve as both names and ranks in the group. They have given names but not many are going to remember them, the title is what and who they are and have been for a long time.”

“Was the group you spent time with like this?” Napoleon knew that Illya did not often talk about his own time among the traveling peoples of his own country, but was curious about the comparison. 

“No, I don’t think so. But I think many things about this group are different.”

Napoleon saw that Alessandro was watching them. “My apologies, Alessandro,” he switched back to Italian.

“It is easier to understand in your own tongue, yes.”

“That it is. But I do want to learn more of your language.”

“That will be happening, this is certain. Already Emil wants to be your shadow and learn about the world you have seen. He will get excited and talk in his own language and you will learn simply by trying to keep up.” 

The rest of the afternoon and evening was a whirl of voices and colours and names they tried to remember as every group they came to was introduced. Food was plentiful and dinner was a loud celebration. Musical instruments were brought out after dinner and there was dancing and singing and Napoleon didn’t need to understand the language to enjoy the spirit of the gathering. Emil asked Illya if he remembered the songs of his own tribe and with reluctance Illya took the guitar from Emil and started to play. After a verse or two, the violins joined in, the melody easy to follow. Some of the songs were familiar to the group, some were unknown and the evening continued with laughter and Illya finally smiling as he played.

“You seem unsettled, partner mine.” It was late when they retired to their allotted tent. Napoleon watched Illya check the tent as if it were a hotel room where they expected to find enemy traps. Finally Illya settled on the pallet he had claimed for his bed, across from Napoleon on his.

“It is different, not what I expected. It is an adjustment. The language is very similar but the, ah, the…” Illya thought for a moment. “The atmosphere is so much different, I feel like I am a step out of place.”

Illya sat and thought about what he had just said. When he looked up he was surprised at the compassion in his partner’s eyes. His startlement showed, only telling Napoleon more about his state of mind.

“You and Mr. Waverly both thought that I’d be the one with trouble adjusting, didn’t you?”

Illya’s nod was rueful, apologetic. “Yes, Napoleon.”

“Well, I won’t say it’s going to be a cakewalk. But I’ll manage. And I am sure you will have no trouble telling me if I get it wrong.”

The satisfied smile that Illya gave him was familiar. “Too true, my friend.”

They set about getting ready for bed and when Napoleon stripped, Illya kept him from bundling his clothes all together.

“Separate them, like this.” Illya went to his own pack and took out a pair of sturdy cotton sacks, into one of them he put his shorts and socks and in the other the undershirt he had been wearing and the work shirt. He eyed the denim work pants and deemed them clean enough for another day of wearing. Napoleon followed suit and then turned to Illya with a question in his eyes.

“It will take too long to explain, just trust me. The lower and upper parts of the body are kept apart, and all things that they have contact with. All things. The clothes are washed apart. Towels likewise. Don’t forget which is which, right?”

And then some of the camping things that had been in one of the boxes sent by UNCLE made sense. One of the boxes that Emil had stopped for had contained food and candy and things for the children, the other had been full of camping gear and things the two agents would need to set up household in the small community they were joining. The box had contained blankets, towels, bedding, a full camping kitchen and lanterns as well as fuel for the lamps and saddlebags to carry at least some of these things on with them when they continued their journey later when Summer came. Napoleon understood now why Illya had handed him one each of the towels in red and blue.

“I see. I know I am _gadje_ , an outsider, and so they may make allowances at first, but how am I going to fit in as easily as you seem to?”

“And that’s just it, isn’t it?” Illya’s laugh may have sounded sad when he said, “I find that I am homesick for a time in my life that was brutally frightening and yet had moments of joy like tonight. But that was never really my life, Napoleon, it was only borrowed for a moment. I guess we find out together.” He was lost in thought, or perhaps memory, for a moment. “Treat all the women, no matter their age, as if they were your Aunt Amy and all the men like Mr. Waverly until they show themselves otherwise, and you will fit in as best you can. Respect is important. But so is friendship and loyalty. This group is much more relaxed than I expected, which is obvious since they have taken us in. But I suspect there is more to the story than a debt owed as Mr. Waverly implied. I’d like to hear the story someday, if he will tell it.”

CHAPTER THREE 

Very early the next morning there was a whooping and hollering through camp and both agents rolled from their bedding and into work pants with guns in hand before it became obvious that this was a joyous sound and not one of alarm. They finished dressing and joined the rest of the waking camp to see what the cause of the commotion was. A beaming Alessandro was telling a tale in the center of the crowd, using great sweeping gestures and quite plainly pleased.

“The mare has finally dropped her foal and Alessandro is the proud papa of a new colt.” Illya translated for Napoleon. “He has promised the children that they may come this afternoon to see the new addition.”

  


Tillio asked them to join him and the three sat in front of his _vardo_ , the colourful wagon that Tillio lived in, and ate their breakfast. 

“Strega says that you need to go someplace that only the Rom have traveled through safely. She says that Alexander has asked help and there is danger coming for you.” The older man had finished his plate and sat watching the children run at their chores, but he seemed not to see them. 

An older girl came with a pot of tea, strong and black, wordlessly offering to refill their cups. Her manner was shy but her eyes danced with curiosity. 

“ _Grazie_ , ah, _Nais,_ ” Napoleon smiled as she filled his mug. She gathered the empty plates and bobbed her head at the men and left, taking with her the faraway look in Tillio’s eyes. 

“Lucia, Alessandro’s eldest. You met Emil, his son, yesterday,” Tillio sipped his tea and focused on the agents again. “Forgive me, please, for passing on the worry of my mother, she is,” he stopped. “It is her job to worry, I suppose. And Alexander did give us cause. Your men have been killed in this search, he wrote us with what details he could. He wanted us to understand the difficulty.”

“THRUSH is a dangerous organization, and we will take whatever advantage we can against them,” Illya’s voice was quiet. 

“I am not sure what value there is in crossing borders as one of the travelers, but we will give you what help we can offer. Alexander is _phral,_ a brother, family. Strega has her own ways she will help. We will give you skills you may use to seem to other _gadje_ as if you are one of us and not them, _si_?”

“Thank you for your hospitality. It is good of you,” Napoleon said.

Tillio laughed, and looked much like his son Alessandro when he did, “Who am I to turn down free labour?” He clapped the men on the shoulders and stood. “Come, I will turn you over to Alessandro and he will show off his newest child to you, for if you think his colts are not as much his children as Lucia and Emil, you have not paid attention to this morning’s boasting.” He laughed again and led them across the camp.

  


Weeks later Napoleon would remember that first morning as he landed once again ass first in the dirt. He let out a string of curses, first in the French and Italian of his childhood, then in the Romani he was still learning. A few English curses slipped in and Emil was eager to learn them as he offered a hand to help Napoleon to his feet. 

“You are usually so much better at sweet talking the ladies, Napoleon.”

Napoleon shot a glare over his shoulder at his partner, then picked up the hackamore he was trying to put on the head of the filly that had caught him off guard and head butted him into the dirt. Again. He threw the offending bundle of straps to Illya and made a broad gesture with his arm, inviting Illya to show him how it was done. 

When Illya successfully coaxed the young horse to do his bidding, Napoleon conceded defeat. 

“Do not feel so bad, Napoleon, everyone finds their strengths in different ways.” Alessandro drew Napoleon over toward another group of horses, the new foals, several months old now. Over his shoulder he gave instructions to Emil and Illya who continued on with the two year old.

The younger horses milled about the two men, snuffling at pockets where they expected treats to be found. “We want them to be comfortable with us humans, we must familiarize them to us, you understand, make them comforted.”

“Comfortable?”

“ _Si_ , just so. I think you have this ease with people.”

“You think I can make impossible situations tolerable?”

“I do not know you so well, of course, but horses are like any group, they sense the intent of a man.”

“And _M’notte_ sensed that my intent was to lead her around by the nose? What was Illya‘s intent?”

Alessandro laughed. “I think _M’notte_ just likes the _biondo_ , the exotic. You look too much like us, not exotic enough.”

“So the filly likes my partner because he is blond and exotic. Not so different from home, then.” Napoleon grinned. 

After that, the roles were set, Illya working with the older colts and Napoleon with the younger. Some days they went with the men who took the working horses out to the surrounding fields to plow or pull loads for the small farms. There was an elaborate system of bartering going on for the use of the horse teams, a system that had been in place for many years. 

When asked, Tillio explained that they came every Spring to this town and hired out for work in exchange for goods, that it had been so as far back as his own great-grandfather’s time. The townspeople knew them, they knew the town, it just always was that way. 

“Your experience was different, was it not?” Tillio asked.

“Yes, my tribe, my band did not have a set place to be each season, a route they followed, yes.” Illya said. “But there was not the, well, not so much the trust.”

“It is so for many of my people.” Tillio again had a faraway look, as Illya had seen the first morning. Tillio continued, “Settlement is difficult for my kind, our home is movement, freedom, the road, it is our way, how we understand the world. The world has changed around us, and it is not so much free now. And will be even less so when it is time for Emil and Emil’s children to find their way in it. Out there,” Tillio gestured toward the town far over the hills, but meaning the world at large, “demands that we be fixed. But we are not the kind of people who stay put so well.”

“You fear for them, the children of your children’s children?”

“I fear for our way to be lost.” Tillio looked at Illya then and Illya felt a little bit of déjà vu, as if he were talking to Alexander Waverly for a moment. He shook himself as Tillio went on, “I think you understand the way, the need to keep going, to move is to live, _si_? Not just your own travels with your lost band, but inside, in your heart.”

Illya was still trying to form an answer when they were interrupted and he felt some guilt at his relief at avoiding the question, if only to Tillio. The question continued to hang in the back of his mind for a long while after.

  


Mid-June arrived and so did a much anticipated group of visitors. Again there was a feasting, singing, dancing celebration upon the arrival of Gabriel and his sons. Tillio’s youngest brother was the horse trader that Napoleon and Illya would travel with on the rest of their journey, his arrival brought with it their own preparations to leave.

On the third night of Gabriel’s visit, Tillio and Strega came to the tent that Illya and Napoleon had called home for the last few months. 

“Tomorrow you will prepare to leave, and I want you to know that you will be missed. You have worked hard to make your way with us, you have shown yourselves worthy of the trust Alexander asked of us.” Tillio was formal and yet his eyes were kind and Illya and Napoleon were both reminded of Alexander Waverly in his manner. They exchanged a look and thanked Tillio, unsure what he might be leading up to saying or asking, as it seemed he had something on his mind.

“To be part of us, to appear to be one of our band, you need something more,” Strega said. “Tomorrow night is the eve of High Summer, you will come out to the woods with me and I will make you the talismans that will give you what protection we can, show you to be one of our kind. I want to do this for you, it is what I have to give, as it was given to Alexander when he needed to be one of us. But you must trust me. Can you do that for a night?”

Napoleon looked at Illya as if to ask if this was what he had known in his own days traveling with the Rom. Illya gave the barest shake of his head in answer and they both looked at the old woman. 

“I will trust you, Strega.”

“Yes,” echoed Napoleon, “I trust you.”

She smiled then, a tension leaving her shoulders and she reached out to place her hands on their arms, “ _Nais_ , your trust is a gift I will hold dear.” She turned and walked back toward the center of their gathering of tents and _vardos._

“Thank you,” Tillio said, though neither agent was quite sure what he was thanking them for. “I wish you open roads on your way. Come now, dinner will be ready and Emil is quite sad that you will be gone soon and wishes to ask many more questions before you go.”

Dinner that night was as boisterous as it ever was, and if the younger ones asked more questions than usual of the pair of UNCLE agents, it was because they had come to find them even more interesting for realizing that they would leave soon to travel with their relative Gabriel, whom they all wanted to travel with to far off places he would tell them about. The older members of the group also seemed attentive, wishing them luck with their mysterious goals and offering what information they knew about places they would see on the way. 

The next day they sorted their gear, cleaned their weapons, checked their supplies and parceled out the things they would not be taking with them. After dinner they said their goodbyes to the friends they had made and then the Strega, for she had somehow appeared as more than just an old woman suddenly, led them to the edge of the forest.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Strega had spent half the night leading Napoleon and Illya around the forest, telling them where and when to cut herbs or gather roots and rocks and a lot of strange things. The full moon had shown so brightly that they had never had to use their torches once, in fact after a while they were able to anticipate the Strega's instructions and the work went quicker. Finally she seemed satisfied, at least enough to lead them back to the clearing where the _carovana_ had settled for the Spring some months ago. 

The camp was cleared of people, everyone had settled for the night but a well tended fire burned brightly, welcoming them back. Two small cauldrons bubbled in the bed of the coals to one side of the fire, it was to this side the Strega took them. 

She indicated that they should empty their packs of their nights' gatherings. When they had each a pile of leaves, roots, twigs, stones, and the odd early flower buds in front of them, she examined them, sorted through them, muttering and taking some, leaving others. She showed them how to add them to the pots of bubbling liquid, stripping some twigs of bark, leaving some buds whole and others picked open to add only the tender unbloomed petals still folded and green. She opened her own bag then, one she had carried all night, though neither man had seen her gathering anything, but then, they had been doing her bidding all night and didn't know what she might have been getting into while they followed her instructions. She took out handfuls of more withered bits of flora, picking out small bits and adding to the boiling mess in the pots.

Finally she started to speak, using a pidgin mix of the Italian that Napoleon knew and the Rom that he had been learning better as he worked with the band of horse breeders and traders he and Illya had been with these few months. Napoleon was surprised at how much he was understanding. Though Illya still insisted his accent was deplorable when he spoke it. 

She was telling a story of some kind, and frankly, both Napoleon and Illya were exhausted after spending the day working with the horses and learning the ins and outs of the life of a roving band of horse traders and then packing for their journey and were having trouble following. Her voice was somniferous, a mellifluous siren calling them to a level of relaxation to which no on-duty secret agent should ever submit. And yet, they felt safe and secure in that drowsy state, as if they existed in a bubble of space out of time where there was no UNCLE, no THRUSH, no politics, no need to protect the world, nothing save themselves and the soft steady voice of the Strega weaving a story around them, through them, into them, with them. 

Illya saw the ground rushing by under his feet, very close to his nose, yet not unnatural. The feel of the night had a quality of waiting as he rushed ahead following the scent of his catch, the scent of the small beating heart he sought, the scent of the prey he tracked. He knew he was close, though he did not see the creature, he leapt knowing that the path he followed led him to the landing of that jump, that his prey was there, that what he was seeking awaited him, their fates twined together like the silver moonlight threaded through branches overhead. 

Napoleon felt the power of the run, the chase, the anticipation of the catch, felt the welcome burn of each impact against the ground in the running, the rush of wind past him as he raced onward, feeling like he could run like this without ending, the singing of the blood in his limbs, in his heart, against his ears pounding like a drum he had never not heard, pounding harder, pushing him faster, enticing him forward until he had to leap to contain the fierceness of this chase that threatened to pluck his heart out of his chest with the sheer joy of this pull onward. 

Both men startled when hot mugs were pushed into their hands. The Strega urged them to drink and they obeyed, still feeling the run pounding in their veins, feeling wind and moonlight caress their flushed skin. She was fishing bits out of the pots and putting them into two tiny leather bags, other things were already in the bags, bulging against the seams. 

" _All, drink all_ ," she urged in her pidgin dialect. They drank it down, not an unpleasant elixir, woodsy and green and faintly sweet but dry on the tongue in the aftertaste. She took the empty mugs which disappeared again into the satchel she carried. She tied the tiny leather bags tightly shut, pulling the rawhide she had dipped into the boiling pots as hard as she could, then knotted them each three times. Then she strung each bag on a separate cord of thick soft leather and moved behind the men to place one on each of their necks. The soft brown leather was inscribed in some way with a small picture of an animal. 

She spoke again, one hand on each of their shoulders. "The stag is the warrior of brotherhood, the pacing to reach the goal, the unity of purpose and common need. The wolf is the warrior of loyalty, the seeker of truth and right path. Together you shall find that which you seek, together you look within to see self and other. Your band is small, you two who are more. You two have a difficult path, but it will pull you forward to a bright goal, the right path will call you, let it lead you." 

Some part of both Illya and Napoleon stood back watching this and mocking with the usual cynicism of men of the modern world and secret agents of international organizations, but the words sank past those artificial barriers and into the sleepy lizard brain beneath and took root, even as their conscious selves were distracted by the show of firelight and moonlight and stars overhead. 

She led them off to their tent under the trees and she did not need to tell them twice to tumble into a well deserved sleep. Their dreams were filled with rushing wind and flashing leaves on branches of trees silvered with moonlight. 

In the bright morning light, they awoke as refreshed as if they had slept on feather ticks with central heat and running water. The reality of the _carovana_ was a shock. They examined the leather charms they now wore, just as every person in camp wore, Illya's with a tiny wolf etched in the leather, looking like it might howl any moment and Napoleon's with a stag, proud antlers arched high into the sky. 

Neither remembered a lot about the evening before. They looked at one another and shrugged, then went out into the morning to take care of chores and eat a hearty breakfast, as they were set to start for the coast that day and that would lead to their sea voyage to flush some birds out of the bushes.

CHAPTER FIVE

The trip to the coast was meandering as they met up with different bands to buy, sell, trade and share information, goods, horses and stories. Every _carovana_ they met added to the body of information they were gathering about the suspected THRUSH activity across the Adriatic. Unfortunately it was all suspicion and hearsay and often sounded too fantastic to the agents for belief. But they added it to what they knew and kept plying their new skills. Napoleon had shown a surprising affinity for new foals, gentling them easily and his voice seeming to sooth them into following his direction. Illya was better with the yearlings, their fierce spirits seemed to be something he could call to, and together both men gained enough knowledge to make a good show of being part of their adopted band. Illya did as much of the talking as they could get away with, he still didn’t like Napoleon’s accent.

When they made it to the coast at last, they called in their report to headquarters, the last they would make for a while, then settled in to wait for their morning departure. Their traveling companions had other ideas. 

“You must come, we drink, we celebrate, we plan,” Gabriel gave them both hearty slaps on the back, as if to propel them toward the taverna he chose. 

“When in Rome?” Napoleon lifted an eyebrow at Illya.

“We are in Ravenna,” but Illya shrugged and off they went.

  


Plans were indeed made, passage was negotiated on a canal barge that would take them to the ship they had booked themselves on. Drinks were bought, dice were rolled, there was singing and dancing and though not everyone was sure why the celebration was going on, everyone joined in. 

Napoleon was adept at drinking and not at the same time, it was a trick he used often to get information, to let his mark think he was drunk when he wasn’t. There was no mark in the taverna, but he felt it was wise to only act like he was drunk, in case THRUSH had spies locally. He had, however, lost track of his partner. That made him uneasy.

That uneasiness grew until he realized that if he didn’t get out and go find Illya, he was likely to do something ill advised and uncharacteristic, like panic, or use his communicator in the middle of the dance floor, neither was a good idea. Their communicators, they had agreed, would be used for emergencies only, in case THRUSH had some new way to intercept them. The first reaction, well, that just didn’t sit well with Napoleon’s way of seeing himself. Solos never panicked. He made excuses to the sloe-eyed girl he was dancing with and left toward the back rooms. He had no idea why that felt like the right direction, but he followed the feeling. He wasn’t sure this really fit in the normal way he saw himself either, abandoning a pretty girl just because he missed his partner, but he was willing to see where it led, at least this once. 

He continued to follow the urge, the prickling on the back of his neck, the hints of silvered moonlight he would swear were there just out of the corner of his eye. One part of his brain berated him for this obvious flight of fancy and promised to laugh at him later, but the rest of his brain led him down the dark hall past rooms of raucous laughter to the alley door. The alley was shockingly silent after the commotion of the taverna. He waited for the urge to choose his direction. To the left, toward the darker deepness of the alley, those barely seen silver leads drew him. He pulled a knife from the back of his belt and silently moved toward the darkest shadows.

Around a corner he saw them, three on one, Illya the one. Illya was obviously holding his own so far. As Napoleon snuck closer the hissed words of Illya’s opponents became clearer. 

“Dirty Gyps, we don’t want your worthless kind here,” the middle bruiser spit the words. Napoleon’s Italian was plenty good enough to understand the slurs.

“Pretty Gyp, you gotta be careful you don’t get caught someplace, oh, too late isn’t it,” another of the drunk fighters teased, his voice harsh.

The silver and prickling were gone now and Napoleon’s senses were fully on the four figures ahead of him, and a new awareness came to him. He could see in his mind’s eye that Illya was waiting for the men to close in before striking, for while the attackers thought that they had him cornered, in reality he was leading them into a narrow alcove where his smaller stature and gymnastic skill would be an advantage and their inability to squeeze in all at once would better Illya’s odds. Napoleon saw at once where he fit in to the plan, and awaited his chance to strike. Napoleon didn’t wonder how he knew the plan, or even knew the alcove was there in the darkest shadows behind his partner.

When it was all over, the three attackers lay moaning, piled in the alcove and covered over with some rotting restaurant leavings from the trash bins. 

“How did you know I was going to be here in time to back your play, partner mine?”

Illya looked at him, face unreadable.

“You did know I was coming, right? You weren’t just going to stick it out alone?” Napoleon stopped. “You were, weren’t you, going to just take on three drunk idiots alone the night before we go on a mission.” Napoleon’s voice was equally disbelieving and admiring. “You are a crazy … Rom, aren’t you?”

“I knew you would catch up or not, either way it was going to be fine, this alley is not where I was destined to greet eternity.”

Napoleon just arched a brow at him.

CHAPTER SIX

“Everybody settled then?”

“ _Si,_ Napoleon,” Gio smiled and Illya tried not to growl. Already he could tell that the new medication that Medical wanted to try was an abject failure. 

“I’ll stay here for a bit if you’d like to go topside with your brothers,” Napoleon offered. 

“ _Nais_ , Napoleon, I like to watch the waves, Divij teases, but it is pretty, is it not?”

“ _Si_ , Gio, she gets into your blood and once you belong to the sea, you are hers forever. Perhaps your brother protects you from yourself there.”

“My people, we could travel the sea, what is a ship but a _baro vardo_ , no?”

Napoleon laughed, “Yes, Gio, a very big wagon. And I suppose still rolling, in many ways. Go ahead. I will help Illya keep watch on our charges.”

When the young man had taken off for the upper deck, Illya released something very like a sigh and leaned back against the wall he sat against.

“The stuff Medical sent is working as well as usual, I see.”

“Which is to say not at all,” Illya bit back the moan that wanted to accompany the statement.

Napoleon went to his pack and took out a currycomb and started to brush one of the horses, his voice and movement soothing the mare from her uneasy dislike of the ship’s rocking. 

“I could try this on you, if you thought it might help?” Napoleon waved the disk shaped instrument at his partner, grinning.

“Try it and you will become one with your beloved sea when I shove you through the hull.”

“Testy Rom.”

“You have no idea.”

The men remained quiet after that, Napoleon crooned to the horses and they quieted as well. 

  


Illya woke with a start, surprised that he had slept at all. It was dim and the swaying of the ship was more pronounced. Gio and Divij had replaced Napoleon, they were curled in the straw across from Illya, still asleep. Something nagged at Illya, as if he should be somewhere doing something, but he couldn’t determine what. He knew going topside would likely result in his seasickness picking up where it had left off before he fell asleep, but still he felt a need to be up there. He turned and quietly left the two young men and the horses.

From the stairwell Illya could hear the sailors calling to one another over the wind, rain was starting to fall harder and the captain was calling for storm preparations. Napoleon’s whereabouts were not evident but Illya felt a pull to go towards the stern and made his way toward the back end of the ship, avoiding the working sailors who paid him no heed. The rain started to lash the deck in earnest as he made his way along and he would swear that it seemed silvered in the dark but there was no moon showing from the clouds overhead to cause it. He kept along the wall and as he rounded the corner of the bulkhead he saw Napoleon with Gabriel and Luca helping one of the crew tie something down. The ship heaved and all of the men swayed to keep their balance but there was a wave coming up across the rail and Illya was already running as it struck.

***

Illya refilled both mugs with hot sweet tea and brought one to Napoleon and wrapped his hands around the second, breathing in the steam and scent slowly before sipping.

“Thanks.”

Illya nodded, “Anytime, my friend.”

“The, ah, tea is welcome, too.” Napoleon pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “Looks like the medication finally kicked in.”

“It’s just the adrenalin, I’m sure. Good thing this tub will be pulling into a port in the morning.” Illya frowned at his tea.

“Remind me again how you are an officer in the Russian navy?”

“Submarines do not put one at risk of falling overboard.”

“Ah, yes, that must be it.”

“Try to get some sleep, Napoleon.”

“Right, with this much adrenalin of my own? You’re not usually such an optimist, partner mine.”

Illya harrumphed and held out his hand for the empty mug, but his eyes showed an understanding that his manner did not mirror.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Gabriel stood from his inspection of the last of their horses to come out of the hold of the ferry that brought them to Fiume, satisfied that all was well. He gave one more pat to the nose of the mare he had been checking. “We were lucky, that storm should have done some damage.”

“Let’s hope that isn’t the only luck we have on this excursion.”

“Too right, Napoleon, for all of us. We’ve got a place to be, shall we be on our way?”

“By all means, onward.”

“The captain says we have about thirty minutes before the harbor master will come around,” Illya walked up and spoke quietly. “We need to go.”

“We’re ready,” Gabriel said. He turned and started issuing quiet orders to his sons and they gathered themselves and made off into the morning. 

The clouds that had brought last night’s storm had passed to leave dawn clear and freshly washed. Separately, Illya and Napoleon both hoped that it boded well for their search, but neither said a word, only followed after their companions, unwilling to give in to anything that seemed like superstitions, even hopeful ones. 

***

“You’re wantin’ to see this, I think,” said their guide, and led them into a dark smoky bar. At the very back of the crowded room they took a table. Gabriel went up to the bar and came back with mugs of strong beer and took a seat as their guide started to talk. He leaned in to speak in a low voice. “He’s been in here every night for a week,” his chin jerking toward the corner table where a man sat alone with a bottle and glass and mumbled to himself. 

The bar was an unofficial meeting place for the Rom, a place they traded information and held clandestine conversations, a place they guarded. The appearance of this outsider on so consistent a basis was disturbing to them, no matter how harmless he appeared. He was in a suit that had seen better days, unwashed and shabby all the way around, the man seemed pitiful. Napoleon and Illya knew looks were often deceiving, but this shattered man seemed genuine in his broken state, not acting the part but living it.

They waited. The locals had told their guide that the man would leave after finishing the bottle, not appearing again until the next night when he would repeat the process of trying his best to crawl into a bottle of hard liquor and then disappear for the night. When he polished off the bottle he tottered to his feet, dropped some bills on the table and weaved his way to the door. Illya had already staked out the street, Napoleon followed the drunk out the door at a distance.

The man continued his mumbling, never letting up the constant patter under his breath. Napoleon got close enough to listen. The man was repeating a nonsense litany of multiplication tables and nursery rhymes and snatches of songs and then starting over every once in a while with no discernable pattern. 

Napoleon checked to see if Illya had the tail, he did. Napoleon backed off a bit and let the man go his way. They continued like this for a while, following the man in turns. Finally he went in an alley, they waited to see if he went up the back stairs to an apartment in a building or into a basement door, but the man stopped. Then he turned and in a very badly accented Rom dialect he softly called to them to join him.

“Please, good fellows, I mean you no ill.” The man held his arms out and away from his body, a universal gesture to say ‘see, no weapons here’ and he waited, mumbling under his breath.

Looks and shrugs were exchanged between Illya and Napoleon. In their own private language, they determined that Napoleon would approach the man, but not very close, and Illya would stay at the mouth of the alley as sentinel. 

Still with plenty of room for retreat, Napoleon stood in front of the drunk and waited.

“You are cautious, that is wise, yes.” The man swayed a little with the bottle of strong drink he had consumed that night, but still seemed amazingly upright, considering his behaviour was questionable. “I know what you seek, and wish to help,” he continued in the poorly accented Rom. “I no longer see clearly, yet I see enough. Please, know that I wish to help, to repay, atone, please…” he trailed off again into a mix of nursery rhymes and gibberish in English. He shook himself and looked up into Napoleon’s eyes, “You must find the right path, the right path takes you to the center, the center takes you to the bottom, the center takes you to the bottom of the world. You must find the right one.” And then more rhymes and some multiplication tables and random snatches of songs. “Let me apologize, good sirs, I mean no harm, just a harmless drunk, no harm meant.” 

The repetition was getting on Napoleon’s nerves, and this man went far beyond cryptic and into crazy making.

“Little birds, little birds, twice twelve little birds, fly away home, sing for your supper, little birds, pick the plum in the pocket,” he paused then, eyes wide as if to impress something on his listeners, “you must find the center, at the bottom, all will fall from there, the bottom, remember, all fall down.” He seemed exhausted, some kind of effort he was making and with the alcohol he lived on, all of it wearing him away. “Tisket a tasket ring the posies in the basket, little birds watch, little birds in the pocket.”

He fell and Napoleon barely made it to his side in time to catch him. Napoleon held him up and the man whispered to him, “Please, I cannot help more, I wish it were different, little birds watch, the plum is in the pocket, take it and go. Find the bottom, all fall from there.” There was more gibberish but his eyes closed and he pulled his coat open. There was a book in his inner pocket and when Napoleon pulled it out, a torn bit of cloth fell. He picked it up and when he did the man pulled away and stumbled into a stairwell and shuffled down the stairs and in a basement door. Napoleon could hear a lock snap into place on the other side of that door as Illya joined him. 

“What was that?”

Napoleon turned the cloth over in his hands, there was a bird stitched on the cloth, the outline of a black bird on a white field. The book was a worn copy Mother Goose Tales. Napoleon looked up from the cloth and book in his hands to Illya and back down again. 

“It’s really not at all good if they know we are here.”

“No, Illya, it’s not. Good thing we’ll be gone before dawn.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Midday found them to the side of a worn trail eating lunch. 

“Do you get the idea, Gabriel, that we are going the wrong direction?”

“Ah, Napoleon, you seem to have come to the same conclusion I have been wondering about today.” 

“Is this not a usually heavily traveled way?” Illya asked as he tore another chunk of bread from the loaf and folded it around some cheese, taking a huge bite.

“It is a Rom way, yes, but we hardly see so much of one another, not like this, so many, all at once, not so much the normal for us.”

“You mean that meeting three _carovanas_ this morning alone is too many?” Napoleon asked.

“ _Si_ , yes, too many. It is time…” Gabriel stopped and looked toward the horses that were becoming restless. His sons got up when he gestured, soothing the animals while Gabriel and the agents got up to walk out of the clearing and to the road where they could now hear the wheels of a _vardo_ crunching on the trail as it was coming toward them. 

It was a single _vardo_ , its bright paint faded and worn. The driver pulled it to a stop when he drew even with the three men. 

  
_“Sastipe,”_   


the driver called and raised a hand to wave. Gabriel answered his greeting. The man stepped down from the small ledge he had been perched on and handed the reins to a boy who stuck his head out the door. 

Napoleon and Illya hung back as Gabriel talked with the other man.

“Napoleon,” Illya said very quietly, so the newcomers would not overhear them speaking anything other than Rom, “that horse has seen better days. I think she’s going lame.”

“A rock stuck wrong maybe?”

“We should ask if we can look her over.”

Napoleon waved Illya on, as his Rom might not be good enough to converse with this new acquaintance. Illya stepped toward the men and waited for Gabriel to introduce them. Napoleon stayed, watching the horse, who did seem to be favouring a leg as she stood awaiting her master’s bidding. Shortly, Illya was calling to him and they approached the mare. 

Napoleon stood at her head, crooning softly as he did to the new foals, one hand holding the harness so she wouldn’t jerk away from Illya and the other hand smoothing over her neck and stroking her mane. Illya stroked his hand down the favoured leg, encouraging her to lift and let him see her hoof. The leg was not yet swollen, nor did she seem to have injured the muscle or tendon. His hand stroked down and then she lifted the hoof and Illya could see a rock stuck there, small but increasingly irritating for the horse. He set her hoof back down and told Gabriel what he found, then went back to the clearing for his pack where he had a pick to clean her hoof and send her more happily on her way. 

The four men congregated around the mare after Illya was finished.

“My poor Vikrami,” the man said, stroking the neck of the horse. He turned to the others, “Thank you for your kindness, I am ashamed that I did not see her distress.”

“We are happy to assist,” Illya said and Napoleon nodded, understanding most of the words spoken in Rom, though he could tell the dialect was slightly different from that he was learning. 

“She will be fine after a rest,” Gabriel said. “It is only half a day to the city now, but we will help you settle in the clearing if you want to rest her first.”

  
_“Va_   


,” the man agreed, “a rest is what she will have.”

Illya and Gabriel spoke with the man while Napoleon led the mare to the creek beyond the clearing, Gio and the small boy from the _vardo_ following along. In his careful Rom, Napoleon asked the boy his name. 

“Maks. What’s yours?”

“Napoleon.”

The little boy wrinkled his nose. “Na… Napl…”

Gio grinned. “Mine is Gio.”

The little boy smiled. “Gio. Your friend has a funny name.”

“I should shorten it to Leo or Leon, less memorable.”

“Not possible, my friend,” Illya had come up behind them in time to hear the exchange.

“For me to be forgettable?”

“Something like that. Come, Gabriel says that you need to hear Tivadar’s story. I agree.” 

The boys ran ahead, back to the camp. Napoleon watched as Maks tried to match the stride of the much older boy. He tugged on Vikrami’s harness when she tried to get distracted by a berry bush. “And how am I going to understand this Tivadar? I barely understand Gabriel some days.”

“You are getting better. And Gabriel has explained that we were war orphans, Italian was our language and now we are back with our own we are relearning what we once knew. He is very convincing. It’s too bad he isn’t interested in joining UNCLE, he’d do well.”

Napoleon laughed and they were back at the temporary campsite.

  


The men gathered around the _vardo_ while Gabriel’s three sons saw to the comfort of Tivadar’s family, sharing their lunch and cool fresh water they had gathered from the stream. 

Tivadar started talking and Gabriel translated into Italian for ease of understanding as well as to maintain the illusion that the agents were more comfortable with the language that was supposed to be their own. Occasionally, he would stop Tivadar and ask to clarify a point, but mostly, he repeated the narrative as he heard it.

“My _kumpagnia,_ you say _carovana,_ yes? They have gone North these many weeks ago. They put distance between the bad places and the People,” the way he emphasized it, Napoleon could hear that he meant their clan, their tribe, the group of families that made up the band with which Tivadar belonged. He wanted to ask why Tivadar was now heading West, but held his questions, not wanting to disturb the flow of the story before it was even started. “Weeks before that, we come to the bad places, not knowing our misfortune. At first, towns were no more difficult than we remember from seasons past, some people will be friendly, some will not trust, as it is always with the _gadje_ , but we come to work and trade, we always have. But then as we came farther on the way, towns grow strange. Small places we have been to before are no more, some gone,” he held his arms out wide, gesturing like he was encompassing the entire glade they sat in, “all gone, burned. Some small places just empty, doors open to the winds and animals wandering. Larger towns, they are more mistrustful, more people come out to throw stones or even bring torches. It has not been so since war times, such hatefulness.”

Tivadar stopped for a moment, many memories showing in his sad eyes. Illya reached out and handed him a canteen of cool water, just to break the tension of his emotion for there was no comfort he could have offered. Tivadar nodded his thanks and took a long swallow of the fresh water. As if fortified, he sat up straighter and continued. “Then when we had decided to leave and return North to our Winter grounds, my son went missing.”

All three of his listeners turned to look at Maks where he sat across the clearing eating his lunch and laughing at Gio telling him an outlandish story.

“That is my younger son, Maks. The baby, my daughter Adrika. Rajit went missing. Laja, their mother, she died last Winter in a fever. Riza, she is,” he paused, “was Laja’s mother. We have no others. Her husband was killed in the war and her son taken from her. My parents also were lost in the war and my old grandmother raised me, bless her name. Our people, they think we bring tragedy with us, that we are haunted, unclean. They blame us for the losses of this season and they become angry. Like the towns that we found, unreasoning. So they go. We stay, trying to find Rajit. We stay until we can no more. Three weeks ago we leave, finally. Rajit gone now for nearly three months. Our hearts broken, our people believe us _pech_ , misfortunate, no luck. We finally must go.”

Tivadar seemed finally to have reached the end of his resources. Napoleon waited a moment and then asked, with Gabriel’s help, “How did your son become lost?”

“We had found some work, enough to trade for some fresh bread and milk with a farmer, we men where planting a field for the farmer. We come back to camp that night and the children were playing a searching game in the woods, we thought. But they were not, Rajit was gone and they were afraid to say. Then the next day the town was angered, a small town, the first we had found that was not empty or burnt out, and they turned overnight to angry shouting and we retreated again to the woods. The _kumpagnia,_ they wanted to leave. We begged to stay, to look again for our boy.” His shoulders sagged again with the weight of the memory. “They waited two days. They say if we stay, we are dead to them, that we are reason for this fall of changing luck and we must go with them or never go again with them.” He turned sad eyes up to the three men listening. “Rajit is a good boy, he would not leave us. So we stayed. And never found a sign or a scrap to tell where he was gone.”

“And the town, were they still hostile, did you ask after him there?” Illya asked.

“I went to the farmer, think maybe someone from town would see my son, or he was not alone where he went. The wife, she was alone in the yard when I come to her gate, hat in my hand. She was afraid. But not from me she was afraid. That was not how she was only days before. She kept looking toward the town. She said she had not seen my boy, she did not know that anyone was missing in her town. She tells me to go, that it was not safe. She held up a hand for me to wait and she went in the door and came back with a towel, wrapped up was cheese and butter, bread and some dried meat. She told me to run fast that there was things wrong and that if I could travel I should do it. I did not understand. She went back in the house and shut the door. She pulled the curtain on the window and so I left. I did not try to talk to the town.” He hung his head. “I only watched, I would sneak to the edge of the woods near town, I watched, I never find Rajit. I should have gone in and asked, but the people in the town were,” he paused, searching for a word. “Those people were wrong. They were,” again he stopped, gesturing at his head and then chest, “empty here, no life in them. They were hollow.” He stopped again, looking away, then whispering, “Those people make me feel frightened.”

Illya and Napoleon exchanged a look. They turned to Gabriel who looked shaken, worried. He was on his way to sell horses that had been agreed on last Summer; he was on his way to towns two weeks travel from the city. Towns that may already be in the heart of this bad zone.

***

Gabriel gathered his sons and spoke with them while they unloaded their gear from the horses, he had decided to delay his journey and camp with Tivadar until he was ready to travel on toward the city. Napoleon and Illya agreed with him. 

“Divij, I want you and Gio to return to the city with Tivadar and his family,” Gabriel began. “Luca, you will come with me to help with the horses.” Gio looked mutinous, but one look at his father’s grim face convinced him to hold his tongue. “Divij, you know the captain of the ferry and he will honour the return tickets, you wait for him and then go back. I want you to find our _carovana_ and then give the Strega and Tillio letters from us. You must keep the letters hidden, you understand this, _si_?”

“I do, papa.”

“You must stay with Tivadar and introduce him to the people we trust in the city, he will need help finding a place, we must help him, you understand? He is alone. It is a sad thing to be left so. We will help him find his Way again.”

Napoleon looked up from the saddlebags he was lifting from his mount. He caught Illya’s eye and with a nod, Illya acknowledged that Napoleon’s understanding was correct, the Way was what they might have described as their belief system, or their creed. Unlike Tivadar’s band, Gabriel did not believe that this man was the cause of any loss of good fortune. He knew it was caused by circumstance and the actions of _gadje._ The agents suspected it was their quarry, THRUSH.

CHAPTER NINE

That afternoon the agents pitched their little tent and then went to the stream again to find some supper. Illya found berries and watercress and wild mint while Napoleon dug at the creek bank for worms to bait his fishing hook. Illya joined Napoleon at the creek and they were quiet as they took turns fishing.

“Did you learn this,” Illya indicated the makeshift fishing pole, “during your True West adventure?”

“No, I read it in a book and always wanted to try it. Worked pretty good, I think.” Napoleon smiled with satisfaction at the pile of fish they’d caught.

“Not bad for a stick and some wire you bent off the lantern.” Illya conceded.

Napoleon took a knife from his boot and started to clean the latest catch, interrupted when Riza came up to them. Her tone was scolding but she was smiling.

“I think she is objecting to your doing the women’s work, Napoleon.”

“I hardly think that she really minds,” Napoleon smiled at the old woman and she took the cleaned catch from him and bustled off back to the camp. 

Napoleon and Illya continued their quiet dinner collection and after several more fish had been cleaned and retrieved by Riza, they went back to the camp to see that she had performed some kind of magic with the fish and some cornmeal and was waiting for their last batch of fish. There were plates awaiting them after they had washed up, filled with crisply battered fried fish and the cleaned watercress for a salad. Dessert was minted berries and there was enough of all of it for everyone to eat their fill. 

The baby had toddled among the diners and finally had fallen asleep on Illya’s knee. When Riza tried to apologize, Illya smiled and waved her off. He smoothed the dark hair on the small head and he seemed very far away for a moment. Maks started yawning and Riza didn’t take no for an answer this time, indicating that it was time for little ones to find their beds. Illya lifted Adrika easily and followed the old woman to the _vardo_ , handing up the child when she had climbed inside.

Gabriel and Tivadar stayed by the dying campfire and quietly talked about routes and plans and signs to watch for; Illya and Napoleon retreated to their tent to write the letter they hoped would find its way to their headquarters.

  


While Illya wrote the letter on a page of paper he had carefully excised from the back of the one book he had brought with him, Napoleon got out the slim volume of Mother Goose tales that he’d been given the night before. It was his first chance to examine it carefully. He moved closer to the lantern to see it better.

“Illya, look at this.”

Illya sat aside his pen and leaned over Napoleon’s shoulder. As the two men watched, the page of the book started to develop browned lines which resolved into writing, the heat of the lantern caused the previously unseen ink to appear. 

“I hope this message is more coherent than its messenger.”

“How could he even know we’d find the hidden ink?”

“That’s a very good question, partner mine. Maybe he didn’t expect us to, only hoped that we would.”

“That’s leaving entirely too much to providence.”

“He was pretty far gone, perhaps all he could remember was that he wanted to pass on the book. The real question is, did he mean to pass it to us in particular, or was he just hoping for someone to come along that he could give it to? What if this isn’t his writing at all?”

“Perhaps once we read it, we will be closer to an answer for some of those questions.”

  
_All of this has gone so wrong so quickly, I can’t even determine where to begin. There is no beginning, but I hope that there is an ending. I hope also that there will be someone to give this to, though I fear that by the time I find a way out of this snarl of my own making that I will not be able to aid in the destruction that has become necessary. For so long I believed that we could mould the world into a better vision of itself, that there was a divine purpose of some kind or at least a destiny that those of us bold enough to grasp would be rewarded with, our superior strength and intelligence naturally making us the better choice to lead the lesser of us to a new existence, a glad servitude to the obvious superior. I was deluded by these visions of a utopian world where each citizen would know their place and keep to it, glad of belonging in the framework of greatness. It is not greatness but madness, pure insanity and must be ended. I hope that if I cannot stop this that I may find those who can._   


The first page was coherent, mad, but coherent, and certainly had the hallmarks of THRUSH thinking.

  
_I do not know how many failures they have burned out now. Too many. The initial drug therapy should have prevented the degradation of control. Implanting the leader in place should have kept the test subjects docile. Extended drug therapy and increased initial dosages have failed. Again. The devices are not big enough to control even a small population._   


  
_Mistake. Too much. I hear it all. Every little thing. Too much._   


  
_I have run. Coward. Yes. I could not control them and now I cannot escape the constant babble of them in my head all the time even when I sleep and I cannot sleep they are in that darkness as well and strong drink and distance only keep me holding to the illusion of sanity._   


  
_I must find I must find the people who travel the traveling the blessedly quiet travelers and they are after me now I can hear them coming for me but I have found a way to block them finding me with the devices and drugs and the blackbirds will be baked in the pie yes they will. I will find the city and be lost and the travelers will shield me never knowing they cannot be controlled anyway and will never suspect. Bless their silence._   


  
_The king’s counting house is four and twenty, in the center of the labyrinth the minotaur guards the shining coins, at the bottom of the well the center will fall and the kings will never put the shell together again all the king’s men will fall when the shining coins are broken and I must follow the silence far away from the center._   


The rest of it was just plain mad.

“What do you think?”

“I think the bastard needs to drink more, a good dose of alcohol poisoning would do him a world of good.”

“Napoleon, if the blackbirds are what he is calling THRUSH, who is the king?”

Napoleon shrugged. “Perhaps the madman behind the current bid to take over the known world. Our drunken friend seems to have lost his love for domination of the species. But he could have drawn a map or something a little more helpful.”

“It would indicate in his ranting that the Rom are not susceptible to whatever devices they are using. But what about the drugs? Why would they be resistant to them?”

“Perhaps the blackbirds haven’t had a chance to try the drugs on them. How likely are the Rom to accept something the _gadje_ would give them? Something that would drug an entire _carovana_?”

“They wouldn’t. So it would have to be given to the town alone. Perhaps in the water supply, many of these small towns still have a central well, many don’t have water in the houses. And the Rom are more likely to trust running water from the creeks or a river over wells, just from habit.”

“Which then leads me to wonder how the babbling drunk knows that the Rom can’t be controlled with devices.”

“The strange sounds in the woods, the stories of newly haunted places, all the odd bits of information we have been gathering. If the devices made some strange sounds, that would be a plausible conclusion to jump to, if you come across uncanny things never heard before.”

“And the missing boy. Perhaps he was taken as a test subject. They wanted to see if the improved drugs or devices could break through whatever protects the Rom, or they just wanted to see if they could control the child, maybe age makes a difference. It may be that they have allowed the Rom to wander through this area in order to kidnap them one at a time for experiments.”

“All we have is speculation.”

Napoleon looked up from the book, worry and determination both mirrored back to him from his partner.

***

Illya spent a long while that night composing his coded letter to his ‘Uncle Alexander’, and hidden in the Italian travelogue was a prearranged code explaining as much as they safely could. Anyone without the code would read only a young man’s adventures in the wilds of the countryside. He sealed it with candle wax and set it aside for morning when he would send it with Gio and Divij. Gabriel had assured them that their people could safely get it delivered to Mr. Waverly.

“Have you thought of a plan yet?”

“Is that what I’m doing?” Napoleon did not look up from where he lay on his bedroll.

“It usually is,” Illya cocked his head to one side, watching Napoleon stare into space with the Mother Goose book on his chest, absentmindedly fiddling with the charm around his neck. 

“We’ve been sent to gather intelligence. But if we have a chance to put a wrench in THRUSH’s plans, I think we should. I suspect that Rajit’s disappearance is tied into the reports we’ve had of strange noises and things in the woods. Our lost agents would have been staying in towns and thus in danger from whatever substance has been used on the townsfolk. If it is some kind of mind altering or controlling drug, they might have had no choice but admit they were UNCLE. That would explain how they were exposed with no inside information. I’m just guessing, but if we go to the town where Tivadar and his band were staying, we might find the trail that leads us to THRUSH’s current location.”

“And it would seem that it is on the way to Gabriel’s destination.”

“I’m not sure that there is safety in anything, including numbers, but as plans go, it’s better than nothing.”

“We will continue on with Gabriel then.”

“Agreed.”

***

Days later they reached the area where they expected to find the town that Tivadar and his tribe had camped at, all they found was empty buildings, livestock wandering in and out of open gates and not one person to be found. The silence was eerie. 

“We’ll find a place to camp, far from this place, _si_?”

“Yes, Gabriel, nowhere near this place. I would like to find where Tivadar camped, if we can. Any clues would be long gone, but you can never tell what might have been left behind.” Napoleon was studying the dirt street, trying to find any footprints or marks of human occupation. 

“It’s rained recently,” Illya said. “All evidence of people seems to have been washed from the streets.”

“Let’s be on our way then, just in case some little birds are still watching.” Napoleon took the reins of his horse from Luca and swung up into the saddle. He imagined that the mare was as happy to be leaving the deserted town as he was.

***

“This seems the likeliest place, see the fire pit there, this clearing would hold a good sized _carovana_. I believe we have found it.”

“We should camp closer to the stream I think, Gabriel, we don’t want to make it too easy for them to find us if there are any enemy agents in the area.” 

“I agree, Illya, yes. Luca and I will scout out a spot for us while the pair of you look for whatever you might still find.” Gabriel nodded at Luca who followed behind him leading the horses and they disappeared into the woods.

“It’s been weeks. There have been several rainfalls, wind, animals coming through. Napoleon, what are you hoping to find?”

“I don’t have any hope, or even expectation,” Napoleon turned in a full circle, coming back to face his partner, hands on his hips and surveying the area. “I think we should try to convince Gabriel and Luca to return home.”

“Easier said than done. Gabriel gave his word that he would deliver his mares, and even if he gave his word to a _gadje_ , he still intends to keep his word.”

Napoleon looked grim. “We need to try, if only because…” Napoleon turned at a shout from the direction that Gabriel and Luca had taken the horses. Illya and Napoleon both pulled their guns from their holsters and took off in the direction of the sound.

CHAPTER TEN

What they found at the riverbank was not what they were expecting. They quickly reholstered their weapons and approached carefully. Gabriel and Luca were calming the horses while a woman with a toddler and a baby at her feet brandished a pitchfork in their direction. Her fear was plain to see but she was ready to defend her camp against all comers.

Illya stepped forward, hands raised to show that he meant no harm. He tried what he expected were the most likely languages the woman would recognize and got it on the second try.

“We mean no harm, ma’am. We’re simply traveling through. We will be on our way once we’ve let our horses drink. We will leave you in peace.”

She looked from Illya to the others, then back. “Those are Gypsy horses.”

“ _Va_ ,” Illya nodded.

“You were here weeks ago. Why have you returned?”

“That was a different group. We are alone, without our families. We are taking horses for trade to a village a few days from here. There is only us and we will leave shortly.”

The toddler that had been clinging to her skirt sat abruptly in the grass and started to cry softly. The baby started up a sympathetic crying but they were strangely quiet in their sobbing. She looked down at them and then back up to the men and the fight seemed to go all out of her. She put down the pitchfork and sat, gathering the children to her and soothing them. Once they quieted she looked up again. “They are hungry. We ran out of food and the milk cow slipped her tether, I don’t even have milk for the baby. I apologize for my behaviour, it has been weeks that we have hidden here. I thought we were found by, by those, the town people, something is wrong.”

“How long has it been since you have seen any of the townsfolk?”

“Three, maybe four weeks. I did not see them, I heard them in the woods, hid the children, then there was a storm and I haven’t heard anyone in the woods until you, today.”

“There was no one in the town when we came through. It is empty.”

She looked up at Illya, fear and sorrow chased across her expression. “Where have they gone?”

“I do not know.”

Gabriel tethered the horses while Napoleon and Luca went to see if they could find the missing milk cow, after Illya explained what he had learned so far. Illya sat with the woman and tried to get more information, but she had little to add. 

“My husband, he went to town and he did not return. All day he was gone and so I went to find him. It was evening. The chores were not done and I found things strange in the town, no one was working, or visiting, there were people just sitting, staring. My husband, he seemed not to see me. He sat on the porch of a house and did not talk. Nobody talked and nobody moved and I thought they were ill. I went back home and I waited. Another day went by and again, I went into town and nothing had changed.” Her voice became very soft, fear making her whisper. “I went into the house of my friend, she was sitting at her table, her baby crying in the cradle, she didn’t hear her baby crying. I took the baby and cleaned her and spooned some milk into her mouth, she quieted. I tried to wake my friend but she wasn’t asleep, her eyes were open, she blinked. But she did not hear me speak. I went to another house and found the same, and Triva,” the woman stroked the head of the toddler, “she was the same, crying and her mother could not hear her. So again, I clean her up and feed her and then I hear a vehicle. There are not so many in our town, so I think it must be one of the men coming but when I looked out the window it was no one I knew. I hid upstairs with the babies and the men in the truck started shouting and the whole town woke and went to the center and the men started talking. The people, they started to do things the men say to do. I do not understand why. I took the babies and snuck away, back to my own house away from town. Then that Gypsy man, he comes and asks after his boy that is missing. I am scared now, so I warn him not to go to town and I lock myself and the babies in the house. And my husband does not come but I hear people outside, and strange sounds at night. I hide us in the attic. The sounds go away and the next day I take all the food I can carry and lead the cow to the river and have hidden here with the babies.”

When Napoleon and Luca returned, successfully leading the lost milk cow, Illya explained what he had learned.

“We can’t leave the poor woman here in the woods.”

“I would rather not, Napoleon, but I don’t think she can go home, in case THRUSH returns to the town or farm house for some reason.”

“Does she have people, in the city maybe?” Gabriel asked.

Illya turned to the woman, “Do you have family somewhere else? In another town perhaps?”

“I have a cousin in the city. Our parents are all gone. And now…” She stopped, unable to voice her greatest fear.

“I am very sorry.” Illya said to her, then turned to Gabriel. “She has a cousin in the city. I think it would be safest if she went there. And the children,” Illya stopped then as well, looking back to the woman. “What about the children, do they have family elsewhere?”

She shook her head. “Parents and grandparents, all in the town. Triva’s people are all gone except for her parents. Dina, the littlest one,” she nodded to where Napoleon was entertaining the smallest child while Luca milked the cow for her supper, “all her family is from the town as well, there is no one else.” 

Illya related this information. Napoleon looked worried. “Do you think there were other children abandoned like these? Should we go back?”

Illya shook his head. “It’s been weeks, Napoleon. Without water, without food, only a few days would have seen anyone left behind perished already.” Both men could read the sickened anger in one another’s expression.

“You plan to carry on your hunt, do you not Illya?” Gabriel asked.

Illya’s expression remained grim and angry. He nodded sharply.

“As we must, Gabriel,” Napoleon added. “We have to find out what we can and do as much as we are able to stop this from continuing.”

Gabriel nodded, then sat on the grass in front of Garta, speaking slowly and quietly as this was not his best language, but one he knew enough of to trade horses. “I will see you safely to your cousin in the city, if you would like to go there. We think it best that you not stay here. It is your choice, of course. But I would very much like to see that you are with your own people and safely away from here. Bad things have come to this place and many others. Please let us help you, if we may. I know you have no reason to trust strangers, but I promise that we want to help. My son and I will see you to the city as safe as we know how.”

She looked relieved, fear still pinching her features, but the offer of an escort appealed, and the promise that she would soon be with what family she might have left seemed to bring her some comfort. She nodded, then quietly said, “Thank you.”

  


CHAPTER ELEVEN

“It’s a ghost town, Illya.”

“One I’d rather not sleep in tonight.”

“I’m with you on that. Let’s go back to the river, we’ll catch some dinner and start fresh in the morning.”

Illya nodded, swinging himself up into the saddle and turning toward where they had found Garta. 

“Do you think Gabriel will go back home now?”

“He will, once he sees that Garta has found her cousin. I think he knows that the villages he was heading for are likely the same that Tivadar told us were empty.” Illya was quiet for a moment. “I wonder why some are burned out and others left like this.”

“THRUSH is refining their method of whatever they are doing?”

Illya shrugged, exhaustion written on every feature. Napoleon looked little better. They had spent the day searching the entire small town, every building. 

Gabriel had taken Garta back to her home and they had gathered some things for her to take with her. With Napoleon and Illya keeping watch, they went to the town and gathered things for the children. Gabriel and Luca fixed up some packs to carry the children in, scavenged equipment from tack rooms. They made quite a sight as they left, each man with a child harnessed to his back and a milk cow on a lead rope tied to the horse that Garta rode. Strapped to the other horses were bundles of clothes and things for the children and whatever was ready to come out of Garta’s little garden to feed the others on the road. Gabriel explained that he would be keeping to the Rom ways, tracks away from the main roads that were rarely traveled by any _gadje_ , and he would then return across the sea and send word to Alexander Waverly about the newest development. 

After seeing them off the partners had returned to the deserted town and searched it top to bottom. For such a small place, it had taken them longer than they expected. There was barely an hour of daylight left when they reached the creek once again. Once more they took turns fishing, but the activity was done in grim silence rather than the smiling enjoyment it had been earlier in their travels. Illya got a fire going while Napoleon cleaned their catch then moved upstream to fill their canteens. 

Napoleon handed the water over to his partner, trading him for a plate of cooked fish. “This is good, thanks for cooking.”

“You’re welcome. It may be the last cooked food we get for a while. I’m not sure we can risk a fire at night after this, depending on if we find THRUSH’s trail or not, of course.”

“Good point, partner.”

“Garta pointed out the smokehouse near her farm. They couldn’t carry everything, there should be something left we can take with us.”

“It will do until we know more about what we’re tracking.”

“Shall we spiral out from the village or search in a grid quartered from the village in the middle?”

“Garta said the strangers came in a vehicle. Unless THRUSH is getting sloppy, they will have stayed off the main road. Of course, considering the way they left the towns, they may be just that bold and be right out there. But I doubt their headquarters is that easy to find. If it were, we could hotwire one of the few trucks in town and find them in an afternoon. We won’t be that lucky. And the horses are a better bet to get to places that trucks won’t go. I think we should see if we can find something that leads off the main road, recent wear on a dirt road will show even if the tire tracks are gone with the weather.”

They finished their supper quietly, listening for anything in the woods but heard nothing but the normal night sounds of insects and night hunting birds. 

The next day dawned bright and clear. Napoleon had taken the first watch the night before, but the truth was that neither man had gotten a lot of sleep. As soon as the birds started to greet the morning light Napoleon rose and joined Illya for a cold breakfast while they waited for the night shadows to flee the surrounding woods. 

“If THRUSH is ignoring the Rom, it stands to reason that they are also ignoring the roads they have made in the woods, so we are not likely to find their nest along those ways. We can use them as a starting point though, crossing back and forth between the main road and it, maybe we’ll trip over something.”

“I agree, it’s a starting point. I don’t think it would be a good idea to split up yet, Illya, not until we know more about what we are dealing with, especially as we don’t know if our communications network is compromised. I doubt it, but just in case we’d better keep to the original plan and not use them.”

Illya nodded then turned to saddle his horse and begin their day of searching the woods.

By midmorning they had covered several miles between the main road and the less defined track that Gabriel would have taken them on to travel to the next town. It was a slow process weaving in and out of the trees, letting their mounts pick their way through the undergrowth of the woods. 

“How far do you think we’ve actually come from the town?”

Illya looked back the way they came and then to Napoleon, “Maybe five miles? And the roads we’re using to bracket this search create a wedge shape so we are spending more time on each crossing as that wedge widens out.”

“I suppose we’ve been in worse country to search.”

“And with about as much information. A nice aerial photograph would really be handy right now.”

“If wishes were fishes, partner mine.”

Illya frowned at his partner and refrained from comment. 

“I think there is a stream up ahead, I can hear it. Let’s go rest our horses and let them have a drink. We could use a minute or two out of the saddle ourselves, don’t you think?”

“Saddle sore at this late date, Napoleon?”

“You underestimate me, Illya,” Napoleon grinned over his shoulder at his partner and led the way forward.

It was a much smaller creek than the one they had camped near. There was a thicket of berry bushes and Napoleon gathered some of the ripened berries, testing one and finding it tartly sweet. He took a handful over to where Illya was topping off their canteens upstream from the horses.

“Morning snack?” Napoleon held out the handful of red berries. 

“Don’t mind if I do.” Illya took a few of the berries and savored them. He held out a canteen to Napoleon.

They remained at the side of the creek, washing the berry juice from their hands and letting the horses graze a bit and drink.

“Do you hear that?”

The woods were very quiet, beyond the usual sounds of birds and insect life and the sounds made by the horses, there was nothing to indicate that there was anything or one in the world besides Illya and Napoleon. The sound came again, a snuffle-grunt sound. It might have been amusing if it hadn’t been unidentified. Both men froze, listening and tense. 

“Wild boar.” Illya said, very quietly.

“You’re certain?” Napoleon whispered.

“Yes.” Illya was sure, his voice steady. “As long as we don’t disturb it, we’ll be safe enough.”

“Hm, feeling like pork chops for dinner tonight? How about bacon for breakfast?”

Illya grinned. “It might be worth it to watch you field dress it here in the woods.”

“You think I can’t? I have been deer hunting, you know.”

“More of Aunt Amy’s True West Adventure?”

“No, that was an idea of my grandfather’s. He believed a man should know how to feed his family. And then repair to the lodge after and let the cook deal with making it into dinner. But I could still do it if I had to, though carting a boar carcass through the woods is not high on my list of things to do this week. I don’t think we’ll starve if we…” Napoleon stopped, alarmed by the look on Illya’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Illya pointed up, above the trees. Napoleon followed his gaze upwards and saw what had disturbed his partner. High above there were birds circling, coming lower and lower until he could see that they were vultures, landing somewhere dead ahead of their position.

They secured the horses then crossed the creek; it was shallow and narrow and they had no trouble. Illya and Napoleon picked their careful way though the woods, slowly and as quietly as they could. The sounds of the boar increased until they could tell that there were two of them. The trees gave way abruptly to a small natural meadow and both men stopped. 

There were two boars in the meadow, dirt and grass churned up and they were rooting through it, ignoring the birds that occasionally landed to pick at their leavings. The truth of the image resolved itself quickly and as soon as the men understood what they were seeing there was no way they could unsee it. Napoleon took a step forward and felt Illya’s hand clamp onto his forearm, keeping him back. He tasted coppery saltiness and realized he’d bitten the inside of his cheek to keep from yelling at the boars to get away. Saliva flooded his mouth with the urge to vomit. He swallowed back both.

“No, leave them. Challenge and they’ll charge and those tusks aren’t for show.” Illya was quiet, his hand steady as he drew Napoleon back into the dubious shelter of the trees. 

They could smell it now, and Napoleon wondered how they hadn’t smelled it all the way across the creek, the cloying scent of decay and meat rotting in the sun. Another wave of nausea swamped him and he breathed through his mouth to avoid the smell and to beat back the upswell of bile. 

“We know where the citizens of the town went.”

“Yes, not that it does a bit of good.”

“Napoleon, all those other towns…” Illya didn’t continue. Napoleon wondered if it was because he couldn’t. He glanced over to see Illya as pale as he felt and knew his partner was also fighting off his own wave of sickness, anger now mixing in as Illya met his eyes and they shared a brief moment of resolve. THRUSH was going to answer for this.

***

“There might be others.”

“Most certainly there are others, we don’t even know how many little villages off the beaten path there are out here. It’s not like phone lines have made it this far into the hinterlands.” Illya’s voice was tired, not from exertion, but from a weariness that went past the physical.

“I mean other survivors,” Napoleon spoke quietly. “Like Garta.”

Fresh horror dawned in Illya’s eyes, clouding the blue to a murky grey. “The very idea of being the only…” Illya shook his head as if he could dislodge the thought. “And if they went out and hid as Garta did, THRUSH has had plenty of time to come up with a cover story in case the wider world discovered their mass graves. They could spin any tale about a random hemorrhagic fever they wanted and who would come investigate? If anyone did travel out here, how would they know any different?” Illya shook his head again, but still the thoughts chased through his head, swimming with the images from the clearing and churning his stomach sour.

Napoleon looked as heartsick as Illya felt, sorrow drawing his features into a grim frown. “We can’t do anything for them,” he jerked his head behind him toward the clearing they had left. “But we can do what we have to in order to keep it from happening again.”

“Goes without saying, Napoleon.”

Napoleon only nodded, understanding that they both wanted to see whichever nest of THRUSH had hatched this current plot pay for their schemes. This went beyond the loss of UNCLE agents. Whatever this was, it was much more involved than keeping plans out of UNCLE’s hands and a lot more dangerous to the world beyond these sleepy little backwater towns.

They reached the creekside again and returned across to their horses. Napoleon dug down to the bottom of one saddlebag and came up with a battered flask, uncapping it and offering it to his partner.

“I’ve never seen you in need of liquid courage, Napoleon.”

“Just a little temporary anesthetic. I brought this along to celebrate victory, I think it might be better served at the moment as a brief moment of peace from the hell back there.”

Illya took the uncapped flask and tipped it back, taking a swallow of smooth whiskey, then handed it back. Napoleon lifted it in Illya’s direction then took his own sip, recapping it and burying it again in the bag. They checked their packs and secured the saddles on their mounts, checking that everything was as it should be, then in almost perfect unison they swung into the saddles. When they looked at one another they mirrored grim determination and a slow smoldering anger to one another. Thus united in purpose, they turned their horses in the direction of the Rom trail and there was no need for words for a long time.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“If we stay on this track, we will be near the next town by nightfall, there is a Rom camp near another creek, Gabriel told me what to look for so it should be simple to find it. We can start early in the morning and check out the town.”

Napoleon agreed then was quiet. Neither of the partners had spoken much once they agreed to skip to the next town and see what, if anything, had happened to it. 

  


The town they found the next morning was smaller than the last, just as empty and they found no survivors, no little farms outlying where someone might have hidden or been missed by whoever was sweeping up the citizens and dispatching them so horrifically. The burial they found was older, settled, it had been some time since animals had visited it, and it was closer to the town than the previous one. 

“Farther from the city and well off the traveled roads, they didn’t seem as concerned with concealing the grave this time.”

“No,” was all Illya said as they turned their horses back toward the town and away from the disturbed earth and bones white in the sun.

They continued on their way, following the road that Gabriel would have traveled and eventually came to the place that they would have been doing some horse trading and reconnaissance. There was no one to trade horses with, had they any for trade. 

“We’ve been riding for days and haven’t seen even one solitary person. Was THRUSH just getting sloppy or did Garta get lucky?”

“I’m not sure she thinks she was that lucky, losing her husband and her home. On the other hand, she has her health.” Napoleon’s voice was bitter.

“Sloppy then.”

“I’d like to think so. If THRUSH is paying so little attention, we may be able to find something. I hope we find it before too long.”

“We’ll have to. These towns wouldn’t stay isolated indefinitely, when the harvest time comes there will be government officials looking for their share. Whatever they are up to out here, THRUSH will have to finish it soon.”

Napoleon thought for a moment, “So in roughly another month, someone will be coming through these towns and discover them empty.”

“Yes, and the fact that they have been inconsistent with the burial placement means that they may or may not be found. Very likely not as the wildlife will have taken care of the majority of the mess. And government lackeys are not exactly creative thinkers, they may not look.”

Napoleon was quiet again, then, “To what ends?”

Illya looked a question over at Napoleon, riding beside him.

“Why is THRUSH bothering to take them out into the woods at all?”

“Perhaps they didn’t at first. Tivadar said the first towns they came to were burned out,” Illya said.

“And historically, burning an entire town is done by a conquering force that wants to be rid of a population or to make them move on, so why burn the place if they killed them?”

“I can think of two reasons THRUSH might do it. First, they wanted to force the population to leave but didn’t want to go the trouble of killing them, perhaps those towns were too close to something that THRUSH wanted kept hidden. Second, they are covering up the evidence of something.”

“Here’s another option, the townsfolk burned the towns down rather than let THRUSH have something in the town?”

“We have no way of knowing if any of these theories are even close to the mark.”

“Not without finding someone out here.”

“And that is another thing, if there were refugees from any of these places where in the world did they go?”

“Excellent question. This affair is full of questions, and so far answers seem few and far between.”

***

Every building in the town was burned to the ground, all that was left were piles of stones that were once chimneys and the hard packed earth that made up the little streets. Patches of green that might have once been kitchen gardens were overgrown and in the center of town was a round stone well. 

“Obviously not a wild fire or the gardens would also be gone, and no explosions, there is no debris in the street.”

“Odd, don’t you think, Illya?”

“These fires were almost surgical in their precision,” Illya nodded, “and must have burned very hot to erase every beam and board this way.” Illya turned away from the black remains of the house he was examining.

By now they had discerned the pattern, deserted towns with a large gravesite usually located in the opposite direction from the road, not farther than six miles from town. They headed into the woods without speaking. 

“Could we have missed it?”

“The most consistent thing so far has been the grave,” Napoleon said. “Let’s keep going another half hour or so and then zigzag back toward the town. This is the first burned town we’ve found, maybe they positioned it differently when they burned the place out.”

“Or there is no grave because they…”

Napoleon glanced over at Illya, realization dawning just as it had to Illya. “They didn’t need the grave because they left the townspeople in place.”

“I’m not sure which is more horrible.”

“So far, none of this has been less than horrible.”

***

Napoleon woke in the black of a moonless night. He could almost make out the shapes of the trees around him, could hear the snuffling of the drowsing horses. It was quiet, but not the kind that indicated disturbed wildlife and he knew the horses would have alerted if there had been a threat. He lay still and waited to see what could have woken him, hand on his weapon. As his eyes adjusted to the dark he could make out silvered leaves on the trees, but couldn’t determine where that light was reflecting from. Finally he rose from the bedroll and wondered where his partner had gotten off to, it was his watch, so what was he watching?

He felt the urge to head for the trees to his left, away from the direction of the latest town they had discovered burned out, the third so far. The silvered leaves seemed brighter that way as well, he shrugged and picked his way forward in the dark.

Napoleon heard Illya’s voice, low and soothing, before he saw him. He found his partner in a little clearing, kneeling down next to an animal of some kind, Illya’s body blocked his view. Napoleon remained quiet as he approached, but could tell by the way Illya stayed relaxed that he knew he was there.

“She’s someone’s hunter,” Illya’s voice was quiet.

Napoleon was surprised to find Illya stroking the head of a dog. “What’s this then, a dog you like? Who are you and what have you done with my partner?” Napoleon knelt down on the other side of the dog.

“She was fighting off something, a fox or a marten, I couldn’t see what. She wasn’t on the winning side, she lost the fight and her dinner.”

Napoleon smoothed a hand down the slick red coat of the dog, felt her breathing fast, yet she didn’t seem scared. “Is she badly injured?”

“I think she is just weak, she’s been locked up somewhere maybe, couldn’t get to food.”

“Maybe locked up by someone who is still around?”

“Or someone who meant to return to let her out and couldn’t.”

“Perhaps she can lead us to some useful clues. Now if only we could speak to the animals like Doctor Doolittle at the movies.” Napoleon didn’t need to be able to see in the dark to know that his partner was giving him a glare. He grinned in the darkness and lifted the dog up into his arms, leading the way back to camp.

***

“We may as well risk a fire and have a decent meal. If we feed her she may have the strength to lead us back to where she came from.”

Illya eyed the dog in the light of day and agreed that she did seem a poor opponent for whatever he’d scared off the night before. “It’s the best we’ve got for now. Perhaps we’ll get discovered by a wandering THRUSH and speed this whole thing along.”

Napoleon pulled the makeshift fishing pole from where he’d tied it to his saddle. “I’ll go find breakfast.”

  


When Napoleon returned, Illya had a small fire going, enough to cook the fish but not so large that they couldn’t put it out quickly if they had to, but they didn’t. They were as alone today as they had been since parting ways with Gabriel.

“The good news is that THRUSH hasn’t found us. The bad news is that THRUSH hasn’t found us.”

Illya only raised a brow at his partner, continued eating breakfast.

Napoleon made sure the bones were out of the fish before sitting the plate down in front of the dog who sat quietly waiting.

“In a few weeks there will be some government representative coming this way, I suggest we make ourselves scarce before then, Napoleon.”

“They won’t be looking for anyone on the Rom ways, if we stick with these roads we should be able to avoid the government.”

“For a time, yes.”

“I hate the idea of leaving without some kind of idea of what THRUSH is up to out here.”

“I agree. We don’t have much of a timetable, Mr. Waverly didn’t give firm instruction on how long we should stay.”

“I suspect he thought we might not return.”

“Such confidence.”

“I wouldn’t say that, Illya, he was just being prepared for the worst.”

Illya shrugged and took another bite of breakfast.

“Let’s give it three more days, we’ll see if we can find where our new friend came from and then start to circle back the way we came.”

Illya agreed and they set about breaking camp and loading up their gear on their horses for the day’s ride.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A day and a half later found them eating cold roasted rabbit and foraged roots and berries. Napoleon looked over to the dog who had finished her portion of rabbit and sat patiently waiting for them to share or get ready to move on. 

“I certainly wish you could talk, dog.”

“Napoleon, it doesn’t help to anthropomorphize them.”

“Still, it would make things easier. Why do you suppose she never begs? Don’t all dogs beg?”

“She has been well trained. If we knew the right commands, I suspect she would hunt dinner for the three of us.” Illya finished his own food and slid the scraps off his plate onto a nearby rock. “Go on then, dog, you can have it.” He gestured toward it and the dog seemed to hesitate as if seeing if he really meant it. Napoleon rose and took his own plate over and added to the pile.

“There now,” he said in a soft, soothing voice, “you need to keep your strength up so you can show us the way to your home.” She moved toward him and he continued to speak in the same low, coaxing manner, “See partner, it’s all in the tone, nice and smooth, there’s a good girl.” He rose and took Illya’s empty plate toward the stream.

Illya was checking the horses when Napoleon called for him from the creek bank.

“Have you found something, anything?” Illya asked as he joined his partner.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Look at the sand upstream a bit.”

Illya crouched down on the stream bank to see what Napoleon might be on about. After a few moments of study he looked over his shoulder at his partner, “Do you want to take up gold panning?”

“Not particularly. But if there is gold to be found upstream, we might also find habitation, a camp that got overlooked by THRUSH. What have we got to lose?”

“Nothing that I can see.”

They followed the meandering creek upstream for the rest of the day.

***

  


“Dare I say jackpot, partner mine?” Napoleon’s voice was a whisper.

“Better not to count the pot until all the cards are on the table.”

“Pessimist.”

“Pragmatist, thank you.”

They melted back into the cover of the trees.

  


  


“Why are there only two guards?” Illya was rapidly emptying one saddlebag and stuffing the explosives he’d brought from New York into his pockets. Napoleon was digging a miniature camera and film from his.

“We’re unlucky enough to find an outpost and not an actual headquarters of some kind. Or we are very lucky and THRUSH has become overconfident with the isolation out here.”

“So we circle around and make sure there isn’t a back door with more guards.”

“Yes. Better yet, a back door with no guard at all.”

“You do have your dreams, Napoleon.”

“We’re losing the light and I want the recon done before full dark. I’d rather not be lost in the woods in the pitch black of night.”

“What are we waiting for, I’ve been ready to go for five minutes.”

Napoleon gave his partner a grin, a feral hunter’s look that Illya knew he mirrored in return.

The men split up and used the blue dusk to cover their movements, slipping through the wooded area around the cave entrance where they had seen the two men in coveralls with distinctive patches sewn on, a black bird on a white field, the THRUSH insignia. 

***

“That was too easy. No patrols, no surveillance of any kind, and it would seem that there are no motion sensors or traps. This is either the worst protected THRUSH emplacement of all time or the most elaborate trap I’ve ever seen them create.”

“I suggest we watch for a while, Illya. Perhaps when they change the guard shift we will overhear something helpful. And it isn’t as if we have anywhere to be.” 

Illya nodded and the two settled in to watch. For a very long time, nothing happened. Evening sounds gave way to night sounds, frogs and insects chorused and the occasional night hunting bird called a victory over a catch. Hours passed. Illya and Napoleon took turns watching the cave mouth and the two silhouetted figures in front, backlit by a dim glow from inside the cave. Without words they would trade the watch duty, all the while the two THRUSH guards stood silent. 

  


Napoleon leaned close to his partner and spoke so softly that barely any air passed his lips with the words, “Illya, it’s nearly two in the morning, whatever schedule these guards are on is either overdue or utterly insane. It’s inhuman to stand still for this many hours, even from THRUSH this is wrong.”

Illya nodded, “Let’s spring the trap, shall we?”

  


With an economy of gestures and a look, Napoleon conveyed his plan silently to his partner. Understanding lit Illya’s eyes and he held his weapon ready with a nod. 

Napoleon took a few running steps and stood before the furthest guard who registered no surprise. In fact the man barely changed expression as he started to slowly move his weapon. He didn’t point the muzzle at Napoleon but instead started to turn the rifle as if to use it like a club and Napoleon handily relieved him of it, dropping him in place with a strong punch. The other guard had barely started to bring his weapon to bear leaving his flank unprotected when Illya easily took the opportunity to step in and take the guard out with a sharp blow to his neck.

Illya and Napoleon dragged the two unconscious THRUSH into the underbrush and stripped them of their jumpsuits and equipment. After pulling the uniforms on over their own clothes they secured the guards and checked them over. 

“What do you think is going on here, Napoleon? These men look terrible, and working double shifts? I’ve never seen a THRUSH installment with such long guard duty.”

“I have no idea, partner. The way they reacted, or didn’t, seems to be more than just fatigue.”

The unlocked door and deserted corridors of the THRUSH facility yielded no answers. The silence was complete and eerie; Napoleon and Illya kept their footsteps light and the their guns in hand. 

The first door they came to inside opened on an office with a desk and what looked like a log book. Illya quietly rifled the desk as Napoleon read through the entries in the book. He flipped back several pages and began reading forward toward the newest writing. Several minutes passed in the spooky silence.

“Illya,” Napoleon’s voice was a quiet whisper, “what do you make of this?” He turned the log book to show it to his partner.

Pages dated months earlier listed the comings and goings of several THRUSH employees identified only with numbers. Notations were made beside the numbers. 

  
_Experimental Group #36 arrives._   


  


  
_Doctor departs._   


  


  
_Change of Watch._   


  


  
_Experimental Group #30 departs under guard._   


  


  
_Change of Watch._   


Then there were several weeks of routine notations, repetitive and uninteresting.

  
_Change of Watch._   


  


  
_Escort Detail Returns._   


  


  
_Change of Watch._   


  


  
_Doctor arrives._   


One more entry of some interest appeared.

  
_Experimental Groups #32 thru #35 depart. Clean Up Detail._   


  


  
_Change of Watch._   


The last few pages had only a few entries for each day, similar and degenerating in what small detail there was.

  
_Change of Watch._   


  


  
_Change Watch._   


  


  
_Watch._   


  


  
_Watch._   


  


  
_Watch._   


The word became meaningless in its repetition. The ID numbers beside each entry were the same half a dozen, until there were no ID numbers at all and just the same word over and over again. 

Illya looked up at Napoleon, a silent question. Napoleon shrugged and ripped several pages from the log book, stuffing them in his shirt under the THRUSH jumpsuit.

The corridor led deeper into the side of the hill and the remaining doors led to more offices but none contained evidence of anything much beyond delivered supplies for kitchens to feed the onsite staff and coded lists of what might be chemicals or equipment. Napoleon used the camera to record a sample of the lists and they moved on. At the end of the hall a door led to a stairwell where they could choose either up or down. There were no markings to indicate a floor number and the door didn’t lock but there was a chair beside the door, as if waiting for a guard to arrive for duty. After a quick look they quietly shut the door again, remaining in the hall to plan.

“What’s your choice, partner? Up or down?”

“We could split up…”

“I don’t think so,” Napoleon interrupted. “We don’t know enough yet and if the other floors are less deserted we have no way to communicate and…”

“We’re flying blind here, more than usual.” Illya finished as Napoleon nodded. “In that case, let’s go down, if I were hiding something I’d hide it as deep as possible.”

“At the bottom of the world?”

“You think we’ve found what the drunk was talking about, not an outpost?”

“I’m hopeful. Cautiously hopeful.”

“Aren’t you always, Napoleon.”

Napoleon only raised a brow and drew his gun as Illya opened the stairwell door once more.

***

“This is the fourth floor of dormitories we’ve found, how many people could they support in this place without being noticed?”

“Good question, Illya. A better one is where are they all now?”

“Perhaps these are rooms where they kept the test subjects mentioned in the logbook.”

Napoleon only shrugged and opened another door to a small room barely big enough for a bed and a chair, empty of habitation. He closed the door and then opened it again and studied the latch, turning the doorknob and watching the mechanism move. “There’s no lock on this door.”

“Unusual for THRUSH, they usually like to have better control than that, even of their own people.”

“Sometimes especially of their own people. Curious, don’t you agree?”

It was Illya’s turn to shrug and they moved on down the hall.

***

“Does this remind you of anything?” Napoleon asked.

“The gym at headquarters.”

“Yes, and where there is a gym, there are lockers, right?”

“Personal effects.”

“Maybe.”

Instead of lockers they found open shelves in the shower room, some labeled with names, others empty of both names or personal items. Illya started on the shelves that did contain clothes or shoes while Napoleon looked in the office off to one side with large windows looking into both the locker area and the gym itself.

Illya joined Napoleon in the office. “I’ve got nothing but sweat socks and a lot of shower shoes and towels out here, what have you found?”

“Fitness records, schedules for basketball matches,” Napoleon looked up at Illya then, “the accounting office was demanding a rematch with the janitorial staff.”

“You have to be kidding.” Napoleon held out an interoffice memo, Illya took it to read. “Well then, it looks like they kept themselves occupied.” Illya handed it back and Napoleon returned it to the file he held. “There are no more stairs, Napoleon. There is an elevator on the other side of the shower room though.”

“I guess we take our chances that it isn’t going to be full of guards.”

“So far, I’d say our chances are pretty good for finding more of nothing,” Illya said as he turned away from the glassed in office.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The next floor was nothing like the previous few, more industrial and less finished but still with door after closed door. Illya took the right hand side and Napoleon the left, guns drawn they opened each door in turn. Nothing but a cot bolted to the metal wall and the eternally lit ceiling fixtures in each room and the hall at regular intervals. It was another silent and deserted floor of dormitory looking rooms. At the end of the hall they turned back toward the elevator.

"No more stairs to be found."

"Maybe they didn't expect a fire."

Illya only raised a brow and started down the hall, turning back when his partner didn't immediately follow. "Problem? More-so than usual?"

"Something about this floor is bothering me. This whole place bothers me, but more than that. I can't quite put a finger on it." He turned back to the last room he had checked, Illya joining him in the doorway. Napoleon walked into the room and allowed the door to swing shut with a small push, just before it closed Illya could hear a muffled 'huh' and then the door sealed itself.

Illya reached out and opened the door again to find Napoleon with his arms crossed and his chin in one hand while he contemplated the inside of the door.

"Trade me."

Illya shrugged and exchanged places with Napoleon, then shut the door on the troubled face of his partner. Inside and watching the door shut, Illya saw what was bothering Napoleon. The hinge inside was made so that the door would actually swing away from the jam and there was a metal lip around the door that effectively sealed the door when it was closed. He opened the door again and examined the piano hinge more closely, noting how it made a very solid seal under the metal lip bordering the door.

"The entire room is metal and once the door is shut it seals itself. But there is no lock, just as the rooms upstairs. What in the world are they doing with these rooms?"

"Napoleon, do you know what a Faraday Cage is?"

"I guess it isn't a carrier for Schrödinger’s Cat?"

Illya rolled his eyes but the smirk he didn't hide softened the look he shot Napoleon. "No. But its use is nearly as theoretical."

“Care to share with the class?”

“In its simplest usage, a Faraday Cage is a metal containment, sometimes even an entire room that can insulate sensitive electronics against outside interference, while doing experiments for example. It can prevent electronic signals from outside fouling a study of certain instrumentation, or keep what is inside from creating difficulty outside, in a limited way. It can act like a container for energy, for instance.”

“So it’s a sort of insulation chamber.”

“It can be.”

Napoleon looked around the small cubicle, much less furnished than the others on floors above. “But there is no equipment in here.”

“No, these look like cells. Cells with no locks that we can see.”

“Maybe they were shielding what or whoever was inside the cells from something outside? It can shield both ways, right?”

“Yes, the Cage can keep something in or keep some other thing out. In theory.”

“Then why would they have people in here and what were they shielded from?”

“That, Napoleon, is a question I hope we can answer soon and get out of here.”

“Then let’s get to it, Goldilocks, before the three bears come back and find us in their porridge.”

Illya rolled his eyes at Napoleon’s back as he followed his partner down the hall toward the elevator.

***

“Did we miss some floors?”

“Not that I can tell.”

“Then this elevator is damn slow.”

“Or the next floor is much deeper inside whatever they built this facility into. Some of the old mines in this region can go for miles down.”

“I hope we aren’t going miles inside the Earth, that will make a hasty exit difficult.”

“But would easily explain why there were no more stairs.”

Tense and with guns drawn they waited for the elevator to stop on the next floor below the gym, when it did it was into yet another metal walled corridor lined with doors. It was empty. 

“How far down do you think we are?”

“At least as deep as the bomb disposal back at headquarters,” Illya said. “And that does not include the five floors above the elevator level.”

Napoleon let out a soft whistle.

“I don’t suppose that you found a set of keys on the guard you confiscated your uniform from?”

“No. Why?”

“I want to keep the elevator on this floor. It would be easier if I had a key to turn it off.”   


  


“I see your point. Well, we can improvise.” Napoleon slipped the THRUSH rifle off his shoulder and pulled the ammo clip from it, cleared the chamber and then wedged the muzzle into the gap between the floor of the elevator and the floor that stood outside the elevator. The large scope, dim and silent while it was shut off, prevented the doors from closing and thus kept the elevator stationary. 

Illya nodded and took the clip from Napoleon. “Could be handy at some point,” he replied to Napoleon’s unasked question.

*** 

“How long have we been down here?”

“Too long.” Illya blocked the elevator door again.

The first door Napoleon opened led to a lab of some kind. He turned to tell Illya to come check it out and found Illya in the doorway of his own search, unmoving.

“Illya?” Napoleon’s voice was quiet in the silent hall.

“Napoleon.” Illya’s voice was soft and without inflection of any kind, “I think you need to see this.”

“I was about to say…” Napoleon stopped moving and talking when he drew even with his partner and could see what Illya was seeing. The door they stood in led to an observation room. There was nothing in the small room but a large window looking over a much larger space. A blockaded door led to the space beyond. “Do you think any of them…”

“No, I don’t.”

The two backed out and shut the door. 

Very quickly and very quietly they checked the few doors leading off the hall and found two more observation rooms, both empty. There was another lab and a storeroom filled with filing cabinets and a desk and chair. They met again at the first lab, across from what had become a tomb.

“Suggestions?”

Illya turned and opened the door to the observation room again. He visibly paled as he looked inside again. “I can’t give you a medical opinion, but I’d hazard a guess that those people have been there for several weeks. This is a much larger version of the Faraday Cage rooms from upstairs, it has been well sealed and so there has been no,” Illya’s voice almost wavered and he cleared his throat to continue, “insect activity. It has slowed the natural process of,” he did stop then.

“Decomposition.”

“Yes, Napoleon.” 

They kept their voices soft, perhaps to keep from being heard by guards they had yet to find, perhaps to give some measure of respect to the dead. They didn’t stop to analyze their choice.

Illya quietly shut the door again. “I suggest we find as much documentation as we can and steal it. Then perhaps a few well placed charges will close this place off from the rest of the world. Whatever THRUSH is doing here, it can’t be good for the rest of humanity at large.”

“What do you think happened to them?” Napoleon nodded toward the closed door.

“I suppose they might have been drugged. The door is blocked but everyone in that room is sitting in a chair, nobody tried to get out. There was no struggle. I can’t see an entire room full of people just sitting and dying, but this is THRUSH we’re dealing with here. But Napoleon, they are all wearing THRUSH uniforms.”

They both looked down at the uniforms they had stolen. 

“Let’s be fast about it.”

Illya nodded and turned toward the lab across the hall. “I’ll take this one.”

“I’ll hit the storage room. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll keep some blueprints in there.”

The UNCLE agents in THRUSH jumpsuits made quick work of searching, keeping the doors open to the labs and store room while they worked.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“What do we have, Illya?”

“It appears to be confiscated research, devices of questionable purpose and several vials of something marked ‘Solution one dash five three seven‘.”

“Confiscated?”

Illya opened a notebook and showed Napoleon a page in the back. “This appears to be a bloodstain and the handwriting changes. There are also some mentions of a previous researcher who was neutralized. There seem to be problems getting the drugs to sync up with the devices and the new author speculates that the neutralized researcher could have solved the issue.”

Napoleon picked up the small machine, looked it over and then spun the gold disk in the center of the wire framework on the top. “Questionable purpose?” He lifted a brow when he said it.

“Mind control.”

“Well, that does have THRUSH written all over it. How is it supposed to work?”

“I haven’t had time to read that much of the research, but preliminary tests reported in this notebook show some limited success. It will take more time than we should take to figure it all out. The drugs were developed independently and seem to have been added after the uncooperative researcher was out of the picture. What do you have?”

“I have a roll of film containing maps. Maps of numbered locations that I suspect are the villages we have been through, and many more we have not. I also have maps of large geothermal sites all over the globe. What would hot springs have to do with controlling people?”

“Good question. Maybe it is explained in these notebooks, we won’t know until we read them, hopefully in the comfort of a nice urban lab far from here.”

“I also have notebooks. They are full of ghost stories.”

Illya gave Napoleon a look that spoke volumes.

“I wish I were kidding, I’m not.” Napoleon opened his own purloined information. “Unless I am mistaken, this says that the researcher in charge determined that incorporeal agents are inconsistent and unviable for future use.”

Illya took the notebook and read the page, then looked up to Napoleon, “That is what it says. As to what it means...”

“Yes, we haven’t the time. I suggest we continue our search.”

“If the buttons on the elevator are correct, we have one more lower level, the last basement in this horror show of basements.”

“And unknown floors above the entrance still.”

“Let’s wrap this to go then, shall we?”

“You have a suitcase hidden in your pocket?” Illya gathered the notebooks and the device off the floor of the elevator where they had been comparing search results.

Napoleon ran a few steps back to the office he had been searching and returned with a lab coat. He spread it out on the floor and Illya placed all the notebooks and the device in the center and they bundled it all up. Illya tied it together with the belt from the lab coat and hefted it as Napoleon took the THRUSH rifle from the door of the elevator.

  


When the door of the elevator finally opened, Napoleon was ready with the rifle to keep it open as Illya covered them with his own weapon. Napoleon drew his handgun and they both cautiously exited the elevator. 

The agents looked at one another and then around the space. Illya indicated he would take the left and Napoleon nodded. They went their own ways in silence.

Neither of the men could see anything like a ceiling, there was only darkness above the hanging lights. The majority of the space was taken up by machinery sitting silent. There was a low hum and the occasional sound of water dripping even over the mysterious hum. 

Napoleon made his way around the perimeter of the equipment area, pausing to touch the bare rock wall. He crouched down, trailing his fingers along the wall and down to the floor. The stone of the floor was smooth, the walls showed manmade marks from tools. He continued with caution and made his way among the equipment. 

The hum grew louder as Illya approached, the sound of water fading until he could see that the hum was a generator fashioned to take advantage of an underground river, but what transfixed him was the sight on the other side of the generator.

  


Napoleon was making his way across what he decided must have once been a cave before THRUSH had moved in. He found, in the middle of all the machinery, a table covered in blueprints and schematics. He studied them for a moment before gathering all of it up and heading for the opposite side of the cave, careful and as quiet as he could while still fast. He didn’t stop to wonder how the construction equipment he saw had gotten all the way inside the mountain on top of them, he just followed the direction he felt drawn in as he hurried. He could somehow feel the direction to go in to find Illya despite the fact he could neither see around the machinery nor hear anything but a hum growing louder.

Napoleon found Illya studying the generator. 

“It runs purely on hydroelectric, Napoleon,” Illya didn’t even look up. “I won’t be able to use it to blow the place but I have a better idea.”

Napoleon said nothing for so long that Illya finally did look up to see his partner as transfixed as he had been.

“It’s like standing inside a geode.” Napoleon’s voice was soft.

“Yes, and we are going to have to smash it to bits so you had better get some pictures while you can or we will never be believed back at headquarters.”

Napoleon dropped the papers next to Illya and got out his miniature camera and started snapping.

Illya studied the blueprints and a slow smile started to cross his face before he went back to the generator.

***

“There has to be a freight elevator somewhere in this mess, Napoleon.”

“I agree. I don’t see THRUSH being willing to transport parts down here and put all this heavy equipment together from scratch.”

“I’ll go right this time.”

“Fair enough.” 

The men split up again. 

Napoleon almost missed the ladder. He had stopped between two of the hanging overhead lights to try to see how high the cave might be when he saw a reflection of something above, a flash that was there and gone. He stepped closer to the wall and saw above him the metal of a sliding ladder, like a fire escape. He jumped and caught the bottom rung easily, but he would never have seen it camouflaged as it was with paint that blended in with the stone wall. He started climbing.

  


Illya made his way along the river until it disappeared in a pool that was enclosed by more of the crystal covered cave wall. He veered back toward the parked machinery and stopped when he heard a noise, drawing his gun and looking up toward the sound.

“Just me, Illya. Catwalk.”

Illya squinted until he could see Napoleon directly overhead beyond the lights.

“Anything?”

“Nothing helpful. Should we be looking for bats?”

“Not if this cave system has no outlet but the river.”

“But it would have eventually. Did THRUSH think that they could control the bats as well?”

“They probably planned to drive them away with some sonic frequency of some kind. On the other hand, they may have tried it. Controlling wildlife is no more or less crazy than anything else THRUSH thinks up.”

“True enough.” Napoleon took a few steps forward and leaned over the railing again. “You know, we can’t see it from down there but there is a sort of pattern to the machines if you look from here.”

  


“Is it going to help us find what we seek?”

“Hard to tell yet. Give me a minute.” Napoleon turned away and Illya quickly lost sight of him in the darkness above, even the sound of his feet disappearing. Yet Illya could still hear water dripping and the hum of the generator.

“Perhaps it is a trick of the acoustics down here,” Illya mused aloud to himself. He moved forward, attempting to follow Napoleon from below, though nowhere near as quick as he would like as he made his way past boxes of supplies and other THRUSH marked things.

“I think this is where I finally get to say ‘jackpot’, Illya.” Napoleon’s voice sounded far away but only a moment later he was again leaning over the railing above Illya. “I’ll talk you around the maze, Illya, it’s not far.”

***

The open platform of the heavy duty freight elevator rose very slowly. Illya and Napoleon stood over the bundle of their captured information and scanned for hostile agents. 

“What about the guards?” Illya asked.

“We can let them fend for themselves in the woods I suppose, someone will be coming back this way sooner or later.”

“Those people will be missed eventually, yes.”

They were both silent for a long time as the platform rose and the images from the closed room came back to them.

The platform stopped and the men gathered the bundle and rolled plans and cautiously moved forward, guns ready. All that greeted them was silence and a long open hall.

“What we need should be on the left up ahead.”

“If the supply list is accurate.”

“Now who is the pessimist, Napoleon?”

“Just tired, Illya.”

“I don’t want to think about how long we have been awake today, Napoleon.”

Napoleon stopped short and the backed up. “Our luck has finally run out, Illya.”

“And yet we are unnoticed.”

Ahead the men could see a guard sitting in a chair facing the other direction.

“Perhaps surprise can still be ours. Cover me.”

Napoleon sat down the plans he carried and started forward. He came upon the chair and put a hand out to grapple the THRUSH guard who fell from the chair, his rifle clattering out of his hands and across the floor. Napoleon checked the hall and saw no alarm being raised from any of the closed doors as he knelt over the fallen man. He looked over his shoulder to Illya and shook his head. Illya joined him quietly and looked down at the guard that Napoleon had turned on his back.

  


“Dead.”

“Where’s the other? They usually travel in pairs.”

“Check the door here, maybe his partner was ill or something, he was waiting for help?”

Illya opened the door on what appeared to be an office much like the one they saw when they first entered the complex. There was indeed another man in a THRUSH jumpsuit. He had been dead much longer, he was still sitting at the desk.

Napoleon followed Illya in, dragging the THRUSH and depositing him against the desk and placing the rifle across the room.

“Let’s get what we came for and go.”

“I think it best,” Illya agreed.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“We need to make sure this shaft here,” Illya’s broad fingertip tracked a line down the blueprint, “is completely destroyed, then these halls will collapse. This original plan,” Illya pulled another blueprint over the first, “was to blow open the top of the cavern to the side and allow THRUSH’s machinery to have access to the open air.” Illya again indicated on the paper spread out on the floor. “I can use part of their plan and collapse both the entry we came in and the one that we found upstairs with the explosives. Done correctly, we will bury this entire place under so many tons of mountain that archeologists a thousand years from now won’t be able to find it, let alone THRUSH next week.”

“And do we have enough timers to set it all off together?”

“I do.”

“Why does that sound like you expect me to leave you alone to do so?”

“Because according to these blueprints there are three floors above the entry we came in and one of us is going to have to go see what or who is there. How much longer do you really want to stay here?”

Napoleon nodded, reluctant to admit it but the place was getting on his nerves.

“I’ll start setting charges up above the freight elevator then work my way up the elevator route we came down.”

Napoleon studied the papers for a moment. “You plan a cascade effect then, when the bottom falls out everything above will go.”

“Something like that. And if I am very lucky, Mother Nature will be giving me some help.”

Napoleon raised a brow at that.

  


“Trust me.” 

Napoleon only nodded again and gathered all the papers again into a bundle. “I’ll just take all the evidence with me then?”

“If you would.” Illya picked up the bundle they had made on the laboratory floor. “The longest these timers are accurate for is ninety minutes. Work fast.”

“I usually do.”

Illya gave his partner a smirk and headed for the far side of the cavern. “I’ll see you back at the horses then.”

“Hey, partner?”

Illya stopped and looked back over his shoulder. Napoleon nodded in the direction of the freight elevator, “Careful,” was all he said.

“You too.”

***

Napoleon stopped when he got to the entry level hall. He looked at his watch hidden in the leather band on his wrist. He debated the odds for a moment and decided he’d move faster without the burden of coat wrapped notebooks and mysterious machinery. And if he hid it outside at least it would be somewhere else if the mountain fell in on him. He ran down the hall to where he and Illya had found the guards. He was cautious leaving the cave mouth but saw nothing at all alarming. That in itself was cause for alarm in his book, whenever dealing with THRUSH. He stashed his ill gotten evidence next to the cave entrance and crept toward the place he and Illya had left the two guards knocked out. The sun was high and hot on the back of his neck adding to the warm apprehension already there. 

He found the guards as they’d been left, laying under bushes and tied together. Napoleon crouched down and reached a careful hand out toward the nearest man. He was colder than would be accounted for by the shade of the greenery above him. Napoleon pulled them both out and found both with no pulse. 

“ _Sheka_ , we didn’t hit you nearly hard enough for this.” Napoleon pulled one man’s shirt open to look for marks or bruises his fist wouldn’t have made and found that the clothes the man had worn under his jumpsuit hid not bruises but starvation. It had been darkest night when they’d jumped the guards and the adrenalin of the moment had made it easy to ignore the signs, the thinness of their limbs and the pallor that was only slightly worse now that there was no blood flowing under the pale skin. “Even for THRUSH this is bad.” Napoleon ignored the fact that he was muttering to himself while he easily dragged the two now dead THRUSH guards back to the cave. Napoleon untied the two men once he had them in the cave, then one at a time carried them to the very end of the hall, laying them outside the stairwell. “I’m sorry about this gentlemen,” was all he could think of to say. He opened the stairway door and closed it quietly behind himself, then headed upstairs.

***

Illya double checked the shaped charges one more time before moving on. He could feel the time ticking away in the back of his head, counting down to the explosions he had planned. He worked his way up the floors of the underground placing charges along the way. It was slower going once he got to the floors that only had stairs connecting them so he worked as quickly as he dared. He bypassed the floor that led outside and continued to work his way up the stairwell, placing charges to collapse the structure. He reached the top and checked his hidden watch, wondering what surprises Napoleon might have found and if he was at the meet point yet. 

Illya stood for a moment at the final door where the stairs ended. He reached out for the door knob and didn’t question the decision to open it. 

Napoleon turned from the open observation deck without any surprise at all. He silently held out a pair of binoculars to Illya, turning and pointing.

“We’re completely camouflaged up here, but you can be sure that they expect to be seen.”

Illya looked and could see three trucks making bumpy and slow progress up the hill. There was no road so they occasionally stopped and men got out and dragged branches out of the way. 

“They’re heading for the other end of the compound, where the freight elevator ended up. You can see where the…” Illya stopped as another sound became louder and demanded attention. He dropped the field glasses and joined Napoleon looking up. “Helicopter. That must be how they got the pieces of equipment and explosives up here. We’d have found a worn track otherwise.”

Napoleon took up the glasses again, watching the progress of the trucks. “They’ve stopped, men are moving brush out of the way. Now all of them are taking the trucks inside.” He traded with Illya, watching the progress of the helicopter now. 

“I hope this is considered the back door and we aren’t about to meet another convoy outside.”

“I can’t see THRUSH being enthusiastic about hiking or coming up here on horseback, which is the only way they could from this direction, Napoleon.” Illya turned to his partner, “I suggest we make our exit.”

“How long do you think it will take them to get to this side of the compound?”

“Since I disabled the freight elevator, they won’t be coming that way. By the time they figure out what’s wrong with it, they’ll be too dead to care. As will we be if we do not leave now.”

Napoleon took the glasses one last time and watched for a moment as the helicopter landed directly in front of the entrance the trucks had disappeared into.

“Right, let’s go.”

Illya led the way down the stairs, his pace increasing as they went until both men were running full out down the stairs. As Illya opened the door to the hall that led to their cave entrance there was a shaking groaning sound and Illya put on speed, Napoleon on his heels.

Illya kept going while Napoleon stopped for the makeshift pack under the bushes. Illya realized he was alone and slid to a stop, turning in time to see Napoleon coming at him and there was a terrific cracking sound, then a rumbling cloud of dust came billowing toward them. Illya ducked and Napoleon nearly tripped over him in the false darkness of the dust cloud. They waited a moment while dust settled, then were up and running again. 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“The horses need a rest, Napoleon, as do we.”

“We’ll stop at the next four star hotel then, shall we?”

Exhaustion pulled at both men and animals as they made a makeshift camp in the darkness. 

“I’ll take the first watch, Illya.”

Illya merely nodded and rolled himself in his blanket as Napoleon made himself as comfortable as possible sitting against a thick tree trunk.

***

“I have a surprise for you, Napoleon.”

Napoleon turned to find his partner returned from his morning expedition. “Fish for breakfast is not a surprise, Illya. Nor is rabbit or various mystery roots.” 

Illya rolled his eyes and gave a mysterious barely there smile. He put the cleaned fish down on the rocks they had surrounded the small breakfast fire with and set about preparing their first meal in too long.

Both men were quiet through the sparse meal, perhaps separately thinking of what they had seen the day before and simply thankful to have even the unseasoned fire cooked fish, thankful to be awake to enjoy it. They remained quiet as they put out the fire and cleared away as much evidence of their passage as they could. 

“We pushed the horses a little far last night. They aren’t endurance runners, after all.” Napoleon pulled a brush and curry comb from his pack and started to pull the snarls and twigs and debris from the hair on his horse. Illya pulled his own tools out of his pack and started to gently check their hooves for rocks or injury from the headlong run away from the scene of the destruction they’d left behind.

“So we should take a few hours off perhaps, allow our animal friends some quiet recovery time?”

“And perhaps use the daylight for some light reading.” Napoleon smiled over at Illya.

“Or something.”

“Now look at you,” Napoleon said to his mount, “as handsome as if you didn’t spend half the night running through dark forests, hm?”

“You know the horse doesn’t care if he’s handsome.”

“But the mares do, Illya.”

“Oh, Napoleon, really.”

Napoleon only smiled and returned the brushes back into his pack, not commenting that after checking both horses for stones in their hooves, Illya had groomed his own mount to smooth and shining.

Illya picked all their gear up and started to lead his horse toward the creekside, Napoleon followed.

“Would you feel handsome again with some grooming?”

“You aren’t coming near me with a hoof pick, Illya.”

“No, but perhaps a hot bath instead?”

“At that four star hotel?”

“No. Right here.”

Illya led them around some brush and to the water which turned out to be a series of pools and a creek several yards away. “The warm spring here,” Illya waved a hand to their right, “runs down toward the creek there. We have our very own, very private bath house right here. Sorry there is no masseuse on duty today.” Illya turned and smiled at a stunned Napoleon.

“I think I can live without this once.” Napoleon led his horse and Illya’s down where they could drink, then tied their leads so they could snack on some long grass while Illya piled their saddlebags where they could see them easily from the pools.

They kept their weapons near at hand but were perfectly happy to strip off and plunge into the warm water of the shallow pool above the creek.

  


Napoleon leaned back with a sigh against the naturally smooth rock side of the pool, feeling the weeks of horseback riding and sleeping rough ease out of his muscle and bone as the warm water soothed the accumulated aches.

“Hot springs have been considered curative by indigenous peoples the world over. I am guessing that you would agree. I’ve never seen you so pleased to be soaking wet.”

“I enjoy a relaxing bath, Illya. I do not enjoy being tossed fully clothed into rivers and pools and having enemies trying to drown me or shoot me or otherwise bring on my demise. This, on the other hand,” Napoleon opened his eyes and looked across the small pool to Illya, “is perfectly fine and welcome after so long without such modern conveniences as running water and actual plumbing. Not to mention shaving mirrors.”

Illya laughed. “Not exactly the pool you are used to, is it? The secretarial pool is more your style I suppose.”

“Well, yes, there are some pools worth drowning in, but today this is just what the doctor ordered.”

  


Lunch consisted of considerably more fish than breakfast. Napoleon was cooking the catch while Illya checked the clothes they had washed in the stream and laid out on the bushes to dry. Unexpected rustling from the trees put them both on alert, weapons in hand.

A rabbit darted from the trees followed swiftly by a sleek red dog.

“Look who’s found us at last.” Napoleon laughed in relief, either because it was their lost traveling companion or because it wasn’t enemy action. He didn’t feel like stopping to analyze it just then, instead holstering his weapon and watching as the dog caught the rabbit at the creekside.

“As long as she is the only one to catch up.” Illya joined Napoleon by the fire, sitting tailor fashion and watching the browning fish in the pan.

“I suppose we could have kept the jumpsuits and tried lying our way out of it if we got caught out here by THRUSH.”

“No, thank you.”

They ate their lunch and listened for any approaching THRUSH. There weren’t any, which was just as well. They spent the rest of the day reading through the notebooks they found, studying the apparatus they stole and then Napoleon went down to the creek to catch dinner while Illya stoked up the campfire to cook. The dog just watched the humans at their work and followed Illya as he gathered firewood for the night.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Illya woke to starlit darkness and Napoleon’s hand on his shoulder. He swung back the blanket and reached for his weapon, quietly as Napoleon still crouched next to him with a finger to his lips motioning for silence. The horses were still, awake and with ears back and eyes wide. The dog was cowering on the other side of the banked campfire, sides heaving as if she had run herself exhausted and yet making no sound. It was eerie and wrong. Illya crouched next to Napoleon and looked a question at his partner.

There was wind high in the trees, a rushing sound, and far off the creek they had been following for several days ran its banks in peaceful rivulets. There was otherwise an absence of normal night sounds. No frogs or crickets or night birds hunting made a single sound in the dark. The banked fire barely crackled, gave even less light. 

Several minutes the agents stayed still, simply listening to the unnatural night and watching the animals whose fear neither lessened nor caused them to run but kept them pinned in place.

Finally the unnatural tension was broken when an owl called and a chorus of bullfrogs sang back their defiance of a hunter escaped. The horses shook themselves and huffed at the dark, the dog collapsed into a still panting heap by the fire, tongue lolling but eyes no longer wide with terror. Napoleon held out a hand and the dog crawled to him, leaning into his hip as he stroked her smooth back.

“What on Earth was that?”

“I don’t know, partner, but it spooked everything.”

“Did you hear someone nearby?”

“I didn’t Illya, but I did hear a whirring sound right before the animals all froze like they were trying to become invisible. Then there was a sort of moaning sound, like the wind but not the wind at the same time. Like the sounds we heard described by the Rom bands who traveled through here in the Spring.”

“It could be a recording of some sort, but that doesn’t account for the reactions of the animals.” Illya stood and walked the perimeter of their little clearing, soothing the horses with a few words and smoothing his hand over their necks. He dug into his saddlebag and brought out a small hard apple from a stash he’d picked as they’d made their way back toward civilization. He pulled a knife from his boot and cut it in two, cleaning his knife on his untucked shirt and replacing it in his boot. He offered the horses the apple halves and patted their necks as they chewed up the treat. He dug into the pack again and returned to the fire. He knelt down and offered the dog a morsel of cold roasted rabbit, she took it delicately and licked the fingers of Illya’s hand. A look of distaste washed over Illya’s features and Napoleon chuckled.

“Dogs have natural antibiotics in their saliva, I’ve heard.”

“I am in no need of antibiotics at the present moment.” Illya handed Napoleon the rest of the food and reached for the canteen to wash.

Napoleon kept grinning as he portioned out the rest of the cold meat and handed Illya his with a smile. “Sorry, I know she isn’t the traveling companion you might have preferred.” 

“It could be worse.” Illya took his cold breakfast, “As innocents go, at least she is quiet and hunts her own food, most of the time.” The two agents ate as the sun started to brighten the Eastern sky behind the trees. 

They took the horses to the creek to water them and let them graze a bit while they filled their canteens and took care of their morning ablutions. They were ready to saddle up for the morning journey when the sound came again, a wind carried moaning and the horses and dog all reacted as they had in the darkness; standing still and cowering.

Illya looked at Napoleon who shrugged and tied his horses reins to a tree branch and nodded towards the right. Illya did the same and went left with his weapon drawn.

The eerie sound was incongruous in the bright morning light. It didn’t seem to come from a particular area but did get louder as Napoleon moved forward with caution. He could see through the trees that Illya was pacing him, both moving low and slow, as quiet as possible. 

Illya kept Napoleon in his peripheral vision and moved slightly forward and to the side of the rocks piled on the far side of their campsite. He would lose sight of his partner ahead so he raised a hand to Napoleon, indicating he was going up the rocks for a higher perspective. Napoleon nodded and moved forward himself. Over the whining sound he could hear Illya scrabbling up the rocks, loose bit of gravel raining under his hands and feet. The far side of the rocks revealed another small clearing like the one they had camped in the night before.

“Napoleon.”

Napoleon looked up to find Illya holding up a device much like the one they had stolen from the THRUSH stronghold. Illya tossed it and Napoleon caught it. Illya scrambled back down the rocks and joined Napoleon in the small clearing. 

“I don’t see the off switch.”

“Improvise,” Illya replied and reached out to pull all the wires he could see out of the base of the thing. Immediately the whining moan sound stopped. A few moments later the normal forest sounds resumed, soon birds were again chirping and small forest animals raced through underbrush.

“Other than scaring the wildlife, what is the purpose of this?”

“According to the notebooks there are supposed to be subsonic or ultrasonic sounds that are emitted from the device to control behaviour. But there are no people around here, so perhaps they are just here to intermittently scare people away.” Illya shrugged and took the thing to study it closer.

Napoleon gave the clearing a look, then shook off the jittery feeling of too much adrenalin with no outlet. “People react differently from animals when they get scared. If this induces fear, perhaps in people it produces something else.”

“You’re thinking of Tivadar describing the agitation of the townspeople, the aggression?”

“Yes, Illya. Typically humans don’t admit fear, but anger is a much easier emotion to express.”

Illya nodded, deep in thought, turning the tiny machine over in his hands. “I can’t see a timer on this, or any sort of trigger. I will need to take it entirely apart to see how it might have turned on.”

“Perhaps we can do that in the comfort of a nice urban lab?”

Illya looked up and grinned. “Yes, Napoleon, that is a splendid idea. In the meantime, perhaps we should see if there is a settlement nearby that this was targeted toward.”

They struck out away from the creek they had followed and passed the rocks and clearings, the horses seemed calm enough and the dog ran ahead to investigate the underbrush. 

“Perhaps we should have looked for more of the devices?”

“I suppose if there are more we will either hear them or they are going to have to stay hidden because I can’t even begin to imagine the logic THRUSH might have used to place them and we have no idea what the range of them might be, that wasn‘t mentioned in the notebooks.”

“You have a point…” Napoleon broke off mid-sentence and stopped his horse, Illya drew up beside him.

“It’s a Roman Road.”

Napoleon looked from the road to Illya and back. “So they were keeping people away from the road, or from leaving the road?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I suggest we see if there is a path on the other side, we can follow it for a while but easily keep from being discovered by our feathered acquaintances.”

They followed the road the rest of the day and saw neither THRUSH nor local inhabitants.

CHAPTER NINETEEN 

"We should find that man again, the one from the bar. Maybe he's sobered up and can tell us what we're missing in these notebooks." 

"You saw that as well, then?" 

"I'm not the scientist that you are Illya, but there seemed to be some connections missing even to my untrained eye." 

"I suggest we stake out the tavern. But what exactly are we going to do with our rides, here?" 

"Improvise?" 

Illya rolled his eyes at his partner and they continued on, the outskirts of the city in sight now.

***

“This might be the best meal I’ve ever had.”

Illya raised a brow at his partner, considered, then nodded. “You might be right.”

The woman of the house returned to the porch where they sat, bringing plates piled high with more food. Illya’s eyes lit up and even Napoleon grinned. She spoke with Illya and smiled at Napoleon, then returned to her kitchen.

“She says we can come in and wash up after dinner. Her father will be asleep then.”

“Sneaking in while the parent sleeps. I feel a resurgence of adolescence.” Napoleon smiled as he watched Illya dig in to more of the farm fresh meal they had been served.

“You made a habit of sneaking in windows?” 

“No, I was usually sneaking out of windows.”

“Yours?” Illya asked between bites.

“Sometimes.” Napoleon gave his own mysterious little smile.

Dinner finished, the men knocked softly on the kitchen door, plates in hand.

“Miss Murat, that was delicious, thank you.” Illya smiled and spoke in her language, which had endeared him to her at the start of their day. 

The older woman smiled and motioned them into the kitchen, gesturing for quiet. The men followed and found she had sat a metal tub in the middle of the kitchen floor, hot water steamed in pots on the stove.

“Thank you, again. We have spent a very long time on the road. We are grateful for your hospitality.”

“I am grateful to have my garden cleared. I am sorry you have to sleep in the barn.”

“It is as good as the best hotel, I assure you.” Illya’s smile was genuine.

She left them and the men took turns using the metal tub and cleaned their dishes as well. When they were done they went outside to the barn to find that their hostess had taken table scraps out to the dog who was happily gnawing a bone of some kind.

“Is that dog grinning?”

“I doubt it, Napoleon.”

“Perhaps it is just projection.”

“Of course.” 

When it was full dark, the agents slipped away from the barn and into the city in search of the man who had passed the book of nursery rhymes on to them.

***

“He’s not in the tavern and I followed the same route he took when he led us here.” Illya was speaking softly, “I didn’t see him coming this way.”

“Nothing’s moved in or out of the doorway he went in either.” Napoleon was equally quiet, wedged into a dark doorway with Illya who had joined him after watching the tavern until closing time.

“Shall we try the door?”

“I did, it was unlocked and leads to a stairway with many many apartment doors upstairs.” Napoleon’s voice showed his frustration.

“An effective dead end.”

“It would seem so.”

“We can try again tomorrow night.”

“We can. Or we can get ourselves back to Ravenna and call in some reinforcements.”

“It’s hard to say how many nights we can spend in Miss Murat’s barn without bringing trouble her way. Even if her father never notices us, her neighbors might and that could be difficult for her, harboring traveling men like us.”

“So that’s two votes for Ravenna?”

“Yes Napoleon, as much as it might gall us to leave this particular stone unturned.”

“I would say we turned plenty of stones up there at the compound.”

Illya only grinned, barely seen in the darkness of the doorway.

***

It wasn’t entirely light yet when the agents left the barn they had spent the night in, yet their hostess met them at the gate of her yard, handing Illya a packet and waving them on their way with a smile.

“ _Hvala_ , thank you,” Illya took the packet and Napoleon smiled and tipped his hat.

“I think she’s sweet on you.”

“I think she is old enough to be my mother.”

“And yet she brings you gifts. Face it Illya, you aren’t nearly the cold hearted piece of furniture you would like others to see you as, in fact you charmed her right into letting us spend a night indoors.”

Illya ignored his partner. He coiled the reins of his horse’s harness and tucked them under his knee, freeing both hands to open the packet which turned out to be breakfast.

Napoleon gave Illya smirk when he took his portion of the sausage tucked into a biscuit. There was enough to share with their canine companion as well as some apple slices which they shared with their mounts.

  


“The dock we landed at should be just up ahead. The chances of finding the same ferry that brought us over is slight, but we should still be able to find a ferry that will take live cargo. Then we can start looking for a currency exchange.”

“Unless something else finds us first.” Illya nodded toward the other side of the road and Napoleon turned. Coming toward them was a half a dozen children, all of them chattering and calling in Romani, a dialect they recognized as similar to the one Tivadar had spoken, yet close enough to their own that they could understand clearly. 

“Come this way, over here!” The tallest boy waved back the way they had come. Napoleon and Illya exchanged a look and turned their horses in the direction the boy indicated.

The children led the agents through a maze of harbor-side warrens, finally bringing them to a courtyard where women where laughing over their washing and a few old men sat and smoked pipes, telling stories.

“How are you feeling about our language skills, partner?”

“I think we are about to find out.”

The children gathered around the old men and their excited chatter continued until the men smiled and shooed them away. The taller boy who had waved them on came and took the reins while Illya and Napoleon dismounted, then led the horses toward the corner of the courtyard where there was a rain barrel and buckets. Both agents kept an eye on their saddlebags and the horses, then walked forward and greeted the men.

As Illya and Napoleon were stumbling through polite greetings another boy ran into the courtyard, pointing and grinning.

“Your horse trader comes.” One old man said to the agents, addressing them in Italian. 

“ _Parla Italiano_?” Napoleon asked.

“ _Si_ , your Strega, she is my sister. I brought my family after the wars, traveling different roads. You think that Gabriel would just wander over here with no contacts? No, he comes to visit as a boy, decides he likes our country here. He keeps coming to visit. He finds a nice girl to marry here. This is how he knows the harbor ways so well, we have been dodging the harbor masters for generations.” The man laughed at the looks on the agent’s faces. “I have shocked you, perhaps?”

“Not at all,” Napoleon replied also in Italian. “I am full of admiration.”

“Come, sit. We await Gabriel, you have some lunch with us, _si_?”

“ _Nais,_ thank you.” Illya said and the men sat as one of the girls came over with cups of cool water to offer the newly arrived guests.

  


“Gabriel, you are quite the man of secrets.” Napoleon smiled as the three men gathered around the horses. 

Illya smirked as he checked his saddlebags and the cinch on his saddle. “Never underestimate the resources of the Rom, my friend.”

“I have much news, but it is best shared once we are on our way.” Gabriel looked around the courtyard.

“Problem?” Napoleon asked.

“Not so much, I just do not want the information to bring harm to my family here.”

“Understood. May we ask after Tivadar and Garta?” Illya asked.

“ _Si, si_ of course. They are both fine, separately. As fine as they can be.”

“Was Tivadar sent away?”

“No, certainly not. He was welcomed, he is finding his Way here. It is a difficult time. You did not find his older son.” It was not a question and the sorrow in Gabriel’s eyes told both Illya and Napoleon that he already knew the answer.

“I am sorry, Gabriel. We did not.”

“Any other…” Gabriel stopped, seeing the answer in Napoleon’s face, no more survivors found.

“What of Garta, she is safe?”

“ _Si_ Illya, she is with her family, what there is of it now. But they are crowded into a small place in the city, very little space or food. They could not fit three, nor feed the new mouths. Garta, she despaired. She asked me if I knew of an orphanage. I told her I did.”

“And the children, they are cared for now?”

“Oh, certainly, we have always been good providers.” Gabriel grinned then. “We have the reputation of stealing babies in the night, why not take advantage of that?”

“What if Garta goes to look for them?” Napoleon asked, surprise written plain on his features.

“She did not ask the name of the orphanage, I did not volunteer.”

“And your people, they will accept these foundlings?” Illya asked, a thoughtful look in his eyes.

“Yes, Illya, we will. I brought with me my Strega’s ways. She was always good at finding strays.”

Napoleon laughed, “Well I guess that is one way to keep up a false tradition, eh?”

“Just so. Now we must be going. I have much to tell you and we have a ferry to catch before the late tide. We go.”

The three men saddled up and waved to the children who surrounded them to see them off. A woman rushed forward, pushing a bundle toward Gabriel. He leaned down and took the bundle and secured it on his saddle, then leaned again to caress the woman’s cheek. “A few weeks, that is all.”

  


“Open roads, _te’sorthene,_ my heart.”

CHAPTER TWENTY 

“I thought Luca would join us at the harbor,” Napoleon said once they were settled below decks.

“No, he stayed with the _carovana_ , he and his brothers will return home again with me.” Gabriel pulled the curry comb through the thick mane of his horse, soothing with action and soft words.

“And what was the news too dangerous to share?”

“First I think I should apologize to you gentlemen.” Gabriel didn’t sound very contrite when he said it, but also didn’t sound threatening. The agents both stopped their own attention to their mounts and turned toward Gabriel. “I followed you the night before we left the city. I watched you talking to the _gadje_ from the tavern. When I came back to the city and had Garta settled, I went in search of him. I told my family to watch for you, I didn’t think you would be gone so long.”

“You followed the man from the tavern, the drunken man that was not Rom?” Illya asked.

“ _Si,_ I followed him several times.”

“Are you apologizing for doing our job or for scaring him off?” Napoleon laughed and went back to soothing the brush across his horse’s coat. “It can’t be helped now.”

“As I followed him one night I noticed I was not the only one,” Gabriel continued. “He managed to lose the other tail, by design or accident I could not tell. I knew where he was going so I met him there at his door and convinced him to come with me for his own safety.”

“Convinced?” Illya asked with a raised brow.

“It is not so difficult to convince a drunk man that something is his own idea, is that not so?” Gabriel gave a shrug that said more than his words. 

“And where did he end up, then?” 

“I took him to the Strega, Napoleon, if he can be healed it will be her doing.” Gabriel’s voice was so matter of fact, so certain that the alarm and surprise that both the agents turned on him seemed overreaction. “My Strega, she is well known as a healer. And where better to hide him than among a people who don’t exist to most of the modern world, hm?” Gabriel continued to brush his horse, unconcerned.

“And if THRUSH finds them? They won’t stop at taking the man back, they will wipe out the entire _carovana_ without a thought.”

“They would have to find us first, and they will not. There is no telling who was following the man, it could have simply been thieves determined to take advantage of a drunk too far gone to defend himself. Do not worry yourselves so, we Rom have been hiding from far worse than THRUSH for as long as we have travelled our Way. Be at peace, my lost _cugino_.” Gabriel’s tone left no more room for argument.

Gabriel would say no more on the subject, so they spent their time keeping the horses calm in the hold of the ferry waiting for landfall in the late morning and catching catnaps in turns. 

The morning was bright as the captain saw them off the ship first. “Better sailing this trip, _si_?” His laugh was merry and his smile wider as Gabriel passed something to him.

“ _Grazie_. Until next we meet.” Gabriel waved a farewell.

“He seems rather more pleased than most to do business with Romany.” Illya observed as they made their way away from the harbor and started to skirt the city.

“He is happy because I travel frequently across the sea and provide help in his less than legal endeavours. It is a fortunate arrangement for us both.” Gabriel was in good spirits, grinning as they rode. 

“It is always good to have allies in the right places. Like harbors.” Napoleon was equally chipper. 

Illya remained quiet, still trying to shake off the effects of a night spent in the belly of a ship followed by a morning of riding. It wasn’t until they stopped for a midday meal that Illya finally regained his equilibrium.

***

Having no surplus of horses to trade the men had no reason to delay their journey and several days of steady riding found them once again in the clearing where they were welcomed by their Romany band.

Again there was singing and dancing and feasting to celebrate their safe return. When asked where the stranger from Fiume was, the Strega only smiled sadly and told them he was somewhere safe. She explained only that all would be clear later and encouraged them to enjoy the celebration, which would also be their farewell.

“You will return to the world of the _gadje_ , but you must always remember that you have another home as well. It is a home you have made here, and a home you have made together.” Strega put a hand on each of their cheeks, patting lightly as old grandmothers will do. “You will always find strength in your home, young men. Do not forget.”

Neither Napoleon nor Illya could think of any answer, so only nodded and patted her round shoulders with fondness. She sent them back to the celebration where they were welcomed. 

***

“It seems like we’ve done this before,” Napoleon smiled as he and Illya settled by Tillio’s _vardo_ for breakfast the next morning.

“Not so long ago, but it feels longer, yes,” Illya agreed.

The camp was bustling with people and animals. Everyone seemed to be preparing for something.

“Today we leave for our Winter grounds,” Tillio explained the activity. “We’ll help with harvests as we go and make our way South.”

“We’ve made no arrangements, we could help if you need us,” Napoleon said as Lucia brought them more strong tea. He smiled his thanks.

“I appreciate the offer Napoleon, but your travel back to your world has been planned.” Tillio nodded and the men looked in the direction he indicated. They saw Strega approaching with a companion they hadn’t expected.

Both men jumped to their feet even as Emil ran up with a pair of little three legged camp stools. Strega motioned for the men to sit once more as Alexander Waverly thanked Emil in Rom, exchanging a few words with the grinning young man.

“Sir, how…” Napoleon changed his question mid-sentence, “was your trip?”

“It was fine, thank you Mr. Solo, but not nearly as long as yours.” Mr. Waverly settled himself on the stool and pulled out his pipe. Tillio joined him and the two men took their time with the ritual of the pipe and flame. Illya and Napoleon just stared for a moment, the sight of their superior in his suit and tie in the midst of the camp an incongruous, nearly comical sight, yet he was at home as if he were in his office back in New York. The silence was broken when Emil ran back up with a little table on which Lucia deposited mugs of tea for Strega and Mr. Waverly. Strega thanked them and they went back to their chores.

“I hope you don’t think I didn’t trust you to return safely to UNCLE on your own,” Waverly said. “I simply took the opportunity as an excuse for a long overdue visit with friends.” He smiled and sipped his tea. 

“Of course, sir.” Illya said, exchanging curious looks with Napoleon.

Mr. Waverly mentioned nothing more about the mission, but visited comfortably with Tillio and Strega in a pidgin of Italian and Rom, most of which Napoleon and Illya could follow and answered in the same way when asked questions. 

“It is time for us to be on our way, we have a long drive ahead. Are you ready gentlemen?” Waverly directed his question at his agents. 

“Yes, of course.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Gather your packs, meet me there,” Waverly indicated the side of the clearing where the Jeep and truck were parked.

Illya and Napoleon retrieved their gear and made their way across the clearing. Along the way several people stopped their packing and preparations to shake their hands or to call farewells, including Gabriel and Alessandro. Tillio and Strega stood with Waverly by the Jeep and greeted the men when they approached. 

“Be safe in the world of the _gadje_ , gentlemen. Open roads, my friends.” Tillio held out his hand and the men shook it in turn, were pulled into a bear hug and smiled when Tillio stood back again. “My ancestors felt these would ward off bad luck and the evil eye. Perhaps they do, perhaps not.” Tillio took something from a pack at his feet. He handed one to Illya and another to Napoleon. “Perhaps for you they will serve only as a reminder of your adventures with our people. I hope that they will be good memories, as ours will be of you.”

“ _Nais_ , Tillio. Rest assured that my memories of this Summer will be vivid, indeed. My time here in Italy has been good and I thank you for your welcome.” Napoleon said.

“ _Tu te trais sastimasa tai voyasa_ ,” Illya said. 

“And to you as well, young wolf, a very long life!” Tillio laughed and clapped a hand on Illya’s shoulder. “Now I must go and see to our own leave-taking,” and with that he turned and was gone.

“Let us see, hm?” Strega motioned at the two agents and they held out their hands with what Tillio had given them.

Strega took Napoleon’s hand in hers, studied the interlocking horseshoe design and then looked up at him. “Luck for you, and the strength to see the end of the journey. It is well.” She smiled at him and for a moment he imagined that he could see the beauty she must have displayed in her youth, perhaps when Alexander Waverly had first met her. 

She turned to Illya and he put his hand in hers. She studied longer and looked up finally to say, “The wheel, it always turns. You will find your Way, young man, you will find your balance. Many roads you have taken and there are more ahead. You weave them best when you trust yourself, when you remember that home is not where we come from but what we make along the journey.” She reached up and patted his cheek again as she had before. “It is well.” 

She turned to address the three men together then. “Open roads.”

“And to you.” Alexander Waverly reached out a hand and Strega took it, smiling.

“Don’t wait so long to come visit again, _Alessandro_ ,” she said.

If the agents were surprised at her use of the Italian form of his name, neither said anything. They were joined by Emil who ran up and asked if they wanted help to put their packs in the Jeep. They followed him and settled their things in the back.

Emil drove them to the same little spot in the road with the filling station where they had stopped so many months ago at the beginning of their mission. It seemed strange that nothing had changed at all, as if time had been standing still while Illya and Napoleon had been gone. Emil parked next to a long car with dark windows. As he climbed out of the drivers seat a man in a suit got out of the car, another joining him from the other side of the little station. Waverly motioned to the men in suits and they went to the trunk of the car and opened it, gathering packages and bringing them to the Jeep.

Illya kept one bundle out of his pack and stowed the rest with Napoleon’s in the trunk. They were ready to get in the car when Emil ran up, shyly handing them small cloth wrapped objects, one to each of the three. “Open roads!” he called in Rom as he ran back to the Jeep with a wave.

The men in suits addressed Mr. Waverly in Italian, he responded that they were ready to go. The three got in the back of the limousine and the men in suits got in front with the dividing panel closed. Illya and Napoleon unwrapped their gifts to find small, finely carved animals. A wolf midstride for Illya and a stag with delicate antlers for Napoleon. They both looked up when Mr. Waverly chuckled. He held out what was in his own little package. It was a small wooden turtle, intricate patterns carved into its shell. He wrapped it back up and tucked it into his inner jacket pocket, removing a notebook as he did.

“I acquired this from a gentleman I think you have met.” He handed it over to Illya. “A gentleman who has a wealth of nursery rhymes in his repertoire.”

CHAPTER TWENTYONE

Illya studied the notebook as Napoleon gave Waverly the outline of their experiences from arriving in Fiume to returning back at the _carovana_. Occasionally Illya would add something but mostly he read the notebook, allowing Napoleon to fill their superior in with their story. Mr. Waverly sat in thought for several moments after Napoleon was finished.

“What happened to the dog?”

Illya made a harrumph sound and Napoleon grinned. “She was immediately adopted by the children with Gabriel’s people in Fiume. Perhaps she thought they would feed her better.”

“Knew she’d be spoiled rotten,” Illya muttered under his breath. This only made both Napoleon and Alexander grin more.

Mr. Waverly turned more serious again, “You found absolutely no more sign of survivors?”

“If there were any, they were long gone by the time we arrived. We may be able to reconstruct THRUSH’s timeline with the maps and notebooks we took. It looks as if Garta’s village might have been their last experimental group.” Napoleon looked at Illya who nodded his agreement.

“I received a telegram from our band of friends when Gabriel came back with the man from Fiume. I made arrangements for him to be transferred to our headquarters in Rome. In the meantime Strega did what she could to help him and Gabriel went back across the sea in hopes of finding you, spreading the word among the people to keep a watch for your return.” Waverly paused, seemed a little tired even that early in the day. “I must ask your participation for a while longer, gentlemen. You will need to remain Rom for a while yet.” 

Illya looked up from the notebook at that, then at Napoleon. They had on the last clean clothes they owned and had only a cold dip in the creek for a bath that morning. Both were showing the wear of the road and no doubt needed a shave, a haircut and possibly a solid week of massage before they would again feel like modern men of the world and sometime secret agents of one of the more powerful law enforcement agencies in the world. 

Illya shrugged, Napoleon nodded and turned to Mr. Waverly. “Whatever you need, sir.”

Waverly nodded. He settled back against the cushion of the seat, reached up and pulled his hat down over his eyes. “You will excuse me gentlemen, we drove half of the night to reach you and I am due for a bit of a nap. Carry on.” 

Illya passed the new notebook over to Napoleon, then pulled the rest from his pack. They started to compare them and put together the new information with what they had already. When Napoleon had finished reading the notebook he looked up at his partner in disbelief.

“Would it have worked?” he kept his voice soft so as not to disturb their dozing employer.

“In theory, it might have. In practice it obviously didn’t. They didn’t have the technology meshed with the drug therapy yet.”

“And the huge machine in the bottom of the cavern?”

“I suspect that would have created an equally huge failure. They had planned to blow a hole in the side of the mountain with their explosives in order to allow the sound waves to be targeted at the city. THRUSH did not take into account how the large amount of quartz in the cave would change the resonance of the sound waves. Or how those sound waves might destabilize the rock eventually. They really need to hire a good geologist.”

“They didn’t hire one to find more suitable caves around the world.”

“They probably thought once they had a foothold they would be able to put the machinery right out in the open. They did seem preoccupied with using hydroelectric or thermoelectric power though. THRUSH could find caves and underground rivers and thermal springs without much help, all it takes is some decent mining maps.”

“But you are saying that eventually they could make it work?”

Illya shrugged. “I doubt it, not on the scale they were looking for in any case.”

They were silent for a while, rereading the notebooks and mulling over what they had put together. The scenery passed by the windows, dimmed by the darkened glass and ignored by the agents.

Mr. Waverly woke, if he had ever really been asleep, and checked his watch. He tapped on the divider and it rolled smoothly down. Waverly and the agents up front discussed lunch in Italian and then as the dark panel slid shut again he explained in Rom to Illya and Napoleon that they would be stopping soon. 

“The agents think we are Rom?” Illya asked as soon as the panel was firmly shut.

“Other than our friends in camp and the two agents who took your place on the plane when you arrived, no one knows you are here.” Waverly looked from one to the other, “It was a bit of extra security in case I was wrong and there was a leak after all. Even my fellow Section One Number One men do not know the identity of the agents I have sent to investigate.”

“Understood.” Napoleon answered in Rom and Illya nodded.

“We can communicate in a pidgin of Italian and Rom, it would be what the agents would expect. Thank you for your cooperation, gentlemen.” Waverly gave them a slight smile. “I know you thought this mission would be done when you returned. I assure you it will end soon.”

“I hope it has already ended for THRUSH, that is what is important.” Illya said.

Waverly only nodded and looked troubled.

***

Illya and Napoleon followed Mr. Waverly into the Rome headquarters, trying their best to seem puzzled by the hidden entrance despite the fact that they had visited the Rome offices before. They allowed the young lady behind the desk to pin visitor badges on their vests and Mr. Waverly motioned for them to follow him.

Alone in the elevator with their employer Napoleon spoke in a mix of Rom and Italian, “We’ve successfully infiltrated headquarters with weapons and a stolen THRUSH device.”

Waverly chuckled, “Yes, very lax standards.”

“So reassuring,” Illya said.

“I may have told the staff that I was bringing some experts in that should be allowed to keep any weapons as a matter of politeness and custom,” Waverly said. “Did you know that no Rom would dare give up his weapon while still drawing breath?”

“I heard nothing like that from Tillio or Gabriel,” Napoleon said.

“And nobody in this headquarters has heard any different.”

“So we have diplomatic immunity as ambassadors from the Romany?” Illya almost laughed.

The doors opened and Waverly led them into the corridor without answering.

The experience was disorienting for the agents, being in hallways so much like the ones they knew well in New York and yet they were not recognized, not even by the few agents they had met in passing at other times on other missions.

They stopped at a large conference room. Waverly waited for the door to close then pulled a small box from his pocket and flipped a switch on the top. He studied the blinking lights and sat the device on the table. “We are guaranteed privacy now gentlemen.” he spoke in English.

“Your orders, sir?” Napoleon.

“I’ve asked for some detailed maps to be brought in here, I’d like you to do your best to trace your route and mark the locations of the towns that you visited. We know where the mine is located.”

“You do?” Illya.

“Seismic activity has been noted.” 

Illya couldn’t tell if his employer was actually smirking or had indigestion from the lunch that had taken place too long ago now.

“I will leave you to it, and there will be some refreshments brought in as well. Remember to be as Rom as you think the staff needs you to be. I believe you had a camera with you, Mr. Solo?”

“ _Shala_ ,” Napoleon answered for them both, sitting his pack on the table and digging out the camera.

“Yes, I knew you would understand.” Waverly took the offered camera, turned and left the room. 

A short while later a young man came in pushing a cart. Underneath were rolled maps and the pictures from Napoleon’s camera and on top were plates of sandwiches, carafes of coffee and tea. The man started to serve the food and Illya waved him off with a stern look and mean sounding words in Rom. Napoleon laughed. The young man looked from one to the other in confusion and not a little fear. He exited quickly. The door closed and Napoleon turned to his partner.

“Did you just very harshly tell that young man to go to the river and draw some water?”

“As you pointed out once before, Napoleon, it does not matter what you say to one who does not understand. It matters only the tone and manner in which you speak.” He picked up a sandwich and took a very large bite, smiling as he chewed.

***

A few hours later Mr. Waverly returned. He found the table covered with the maps, the maps in turn covered in notes. The notebooks were arranged in as close to chronological order as the agents could make out. Some were opened to key pages, others closed. Illya was working on the device, Napoleon assisting.

“Right here, put your finger here and hold this.” Illya instructed.

“And is this going to blow up when you’re done?”

“No. Sadly.”

Waverly cleared his throat.

Both men turned, surprised that their superior had gotten in without them hearing the door.

“Our guest is awake, for the moment. Please come with me now.” Waverly picked up the box with the blinking lights and slipped it in his jacket pocket, turned and went out the door. Illya and Napoleon followed.

  


The room was cramped with medical equipment, bed and chairs, dim lighting enhancing the oppression of it all rather than hiding it. The man in the bed as pale as the stark white bedding whispered under his breath, eyes closed. 

Waverly gestured for the men to approach the bed, he stayed near the foot of it. He cleared his throat and the man in the bed opened his eyes, fear showing plainly as the whites showed.

“Two and two is four, fleece as white as snow.” He closed his eyes again, continuing to mutter nonsense.

“He has remained this way the entire time he has been here. Strega told me that while he was with her he was somewhat coherent, at least able to take care of himself, but he is weakened by some illness that our medical staff cannot define. Stay with him for a few minutes, see if you can reach him.” Waverly turned and left them in the room, leaving the security box on an instrument table and closing the door after himself.

Napoleon pulled a chair close to the bed and sat on the edge of it, Illya stood behind him studying the medical chart that had been hanging on the end of the bed.

“My name is Napoleon. This is my partner Illya.” Napoleon started in Rom, knowing that the man knew at least a small amount of the language, but switched to English because that was the language the man in the bed recited his gibberish in. “Do you remember that you met us a short while ago?”

The man opened his eyes again, fearfully looking around the room as if searching for something or someone. “They hear. They hear.” His whisper was hoarse.

“We’re the only ones here, sir.” Napoleon said, trying to reassure the patient.

“Perhaps he means that someone is listening.”

Napoleon looked over his shoulder at Illya. Illya showed him a page of intake notes saying that the patient was paranoid and convinced that he was being followed and that his thoughts were overheard. Napoleon turned back to the man in the bed. “You see the box with the lights over there, that device guarantees that nobody can listen in to our conversation. We have the best equipment, I promise.”

“All the king’s horses and twice six is twelve.”

Illya sighed and replaced the chart on the hook at the foot of the bed. “At least the math is correct, if incoherent,” he said softly.

Napoleon switched back to Rom, “Sir, can you tell us how we can help you?”

“Too late, too late.” The man answered in his poor Rom.

Napoleon looked back at Illya who nodded, encouraging him to continue in their recently adopted language.

“Why is it too late?”

“Dying, all dying, dead, trapped.”

“You are trapped? By what?”

“Trapped in the counting house,” the man responded in both Rom and English now, using words in both languages in the same partial sentences.

“This is a healing place, you are safe here.”

“Jumped over the candle to light me to dead.” He was using only English now.

“There is nobody here who wants you harmed, you are safe.” Napoleon continued to use Rom as it seemed to soothe the sick man.

“Oranges and lemons say the bells, the bells…” the man trailed off, eyes closing again. 

“I wish you could at least tell me your name,” Napoleon spoke softly. The man in the bed did not open his eyes. His breathing evened out and he appeared to sleep. 

Illya drew up the other chair and sat, watching just as Napoleon did. The medical monitors hummed and beeped softly. When Mr. Waverly returned he found the agents silent, as if sitting vigil for a friend.

The three remained silent as they returned to the conference room. Waverly again sat the lighted box on the table and turned to his agents. “As you can see, he can be of no help.”

“He seems to believe that he is doomed, if I am interpreting his confused babble correctly.” Illya was solemn. “It is possible that he is willing himself to die as there seems no medical cause for his decline. Even his recent heavy drinking has not caused enough damage to produce these results.”

“The medical staff has come to the same conclusion, though they will not discuss it openly as such. They hint.” Waverly looked at the table full of evidence and changed the subject. “I will need you to give us a verbal report about what you have gathered here.”

“Us, sir?”

“Section One called the Autumn Summit early this year, we are gathering tomorrow right here in this room. I want you to explain what you found and what you think we can do to counteract it. We prefer a more secluded place, but this will give my fellow Number Ones a chance to relive their younger days a bit and sneak into the city in disguise. Perhaps a bit of adventure will lend a bit of needed levity to the proceedings.” Waverly tried to give them a little smile but was perhaps still disturbed by their visit to the patient or by the materials on the table and so did not succeed very well. “I am sure you gentlemen would very much like to enjoy some modern plumbing and laundry and whatnot. We will lock this room and return tomorrow. Be ready in five minutes if you would.” He waited for their nods of agreement and turned to go.

“Sir?” Napoleon stopped Waverly before the door opened.

Waverly paused and turned. “Yes, Mr. Solo?”

“If he wakes again, may we see him?”

“You have a plan of some kind.” It was not a question but an expectation.

“Merely a, ah, hunch if you will. A long shot at best.”

“Very well. I will leave instructions. Five minutes, gentlemen.”

  


The same dark windowed car sped them through nighttime streets, depositing the three at a large gated residence. Waverly rang the bell and a man in a dark suit opened the door and ushered them in. He spoke briefly in Italian to Waverly and then was joined by another man, obviously both UNCLE agents. The two men left and Waverly locked the door and set the exterior alarm.

“We have the run of the house, the kitchen is well stocked and agents will be patrolling the perimeter. We are in for the night, gentlemen. I am sorry that you will be required to do your own chores but I am reluctant to risk having a staff of any kind tonight. My Rom is rusty and I do not wish to spend the evening keeping up appearances, you understand.”

“Of course, sir. Shall we make you dinner then?”

“What? No. That is perfectly alright, you boys go upstairs and make yourselves at home. Laundry is in the basement, there is a bath attached to every bedroom. I am already settled in the last room on the left and there are three more you may choose for yourselves. I will be in the library if you need me. That is down here and to the right.” Waverly gestured down the hall past the staircase that led up to the promised beds and plumbing. He turned then, walking down the hall and disappeared into what Illya and Napoleon guessed was the library mentioned.

The agents looked at one another. “You boys?” Illya whispered.

“I would guess that he is almost as tired of this affair as we are,” Napoleon shrugged. He picked up his pack and started for the stairs. “Wash up and then wash clothes?”

“That is the best idea I have heard all day. Followed by dinner that neither of us has found or caught or gutted. A tin of beans heated over an electric coil would make me happy right now.”

Napoleon chuckled. “I can’t say as I disagree, partner.”

  


An hour later the two met up in the hall outside the bedrooms they had chosen, both wearing robes that had been left folded on the beds.

“I hear this is all the rage this season for dinner attire.” Napoleon grinned at Illya as they carried every bit of clothing they currently possessed down the stairs.

“And if it is not I am sure you will set a new standard for men’s fashion as soon as word gets out.” Illya didn’t quite smirk at his partner as he said it.

In the basement they dropped everything on the floor and Illya studied the dials on the machines while Napoleon sorted. 

“Everything we own is barely a full load. I say we stuff it all in there and hope for the best.”

“Lucky for us this isn’t a wringer washer, dinner will be that much faster in arriving.” Illya picked up everything and shoved it in the washer, adding the amount of soap the box instructed. He turned the dial and smiled with satisfaction as the water started to fill the washer.

Upstairs again they went in search of the kitchen and found their superior already there.

“Dinner, gentlemen.”

“Music to our ears, I assure you, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr. Solo. I would love to take credit but in fact I had this picked up from a restaurant earlier today. It is hot and there is plenty of it so I am sure it will do for one night.”

They ate in the kitchen and by unspoken agreement did not discuss the current affair at all. Mr. Waverly asked very general questions about their time among the Romany and what they had seen in their travels across the Italian countryside. The agents answered, told a few stories about the people they met, the horses they learned to train. All three of the men tried very hard to avoid any topic that might be related to THRUSH at all. 

“That was a fine meal, thank you Mr. Waverly. Since you cooked we’ll wash up.” 

Waverly smiled. “Thank you Mr. Kuryakin, I will let you. Our car will be here for us early so I am going to call it a night. I trust you found everything you needed upstairs?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“We did, thank you.”

“Goodnight gentlemen, until morning then.”

Waverly left and Illya went to the basement to turn the laundry over while Napoleon gathered the dishes. Illya returned and started to dry the dishes that Napoleon was washing.

When they had replaced the last dish in the cupboard and hung the towels they used to dry, Napoleon turned to Illya with a yawn. “I vote we leave the clothes until morning. I don’t think I will stay awake long enough to get them out of the dryer.”

“They’ll be wrinkled.”

“At least they will be clean, and in any case we are supposed to be used to living rough. I don’t recall very much ironing going on in camp.”

Illya laughed. “I think you are right. We will chalk it up to keeping our cover authentic.”

  


Light was barely creeping across the dawn sky when the two met again in the kitchen. Napoleon everything needed for a very large breakfast and started cracking eggs into a bowl while Illya went again to the basement an retrieved their laundered clothes. He heaped the pile on the table and folded while Napoleon scrambled eggs with diced fresh tomato and some grated cheese. Toast and bacon and sausage and fresh coffee as well as orange juice completed the menu.

“I wasn’t sure what you would want so I cooked some of everything I found.”

“Some of everything is always a good choice.”

Napoleon smiled and started to plate the food as Mr. Waverly came into the kitchen.

“That is a delightful smell to wake up to, gentlemen.”

“Clean laundry?”

“No, Mr. Kuryakin, coffee and bacon that someone else has cooked.”

“Pull up a chair, sir. You are right on time. And dressed for breakfast I see.” Napoleon smiled and presented a plate to his employer.

“Well, I did think I was a bit overdressed last evening.” Waverly gave his men a small smile. He had appeared at the table in his own robe, one that matched the ones left on the beds that Illya and Napoleon were wearing again.

“You were right, Illya, it is what he best dressed are wearing this season, robes like this.” 

The humour might be contrived but all three sensed that it would be the last they might see that day and made the best of breakfast with more outlandish suggestions about beards coming back into style since neither agent would shave while maintaining their cover. 

Waverly insisted on clearing breakfast but the agents wouldn’t hear it, sending him on his way to get ready for his day while they cleaned up the dishes and left the kitchen as they had found it, if a bit emptier in the ice box.

  


Once again they were issued visitor passes at the door to the Rome Headquarters and were left in the conference room. Waverly explained that he would be back in half an hour or so and left them to ready themselves for the presentation. 

  


Of the five men gathered at the conference table, only Waverly was dressed as Illya and Napoleon had come to expect of UNCLE agents in general and Section One leaders in specific. Waverly was the only one in a suit. The other men had obviously had a good time indeed with their subterfuge and costume choice for sneaking into the Rome meeting. When Illya finished explaining the technical aspects of the THRUSH plan, as far as they could understand it, there was silence in the room for an uncomfortably long time. 

Finally the Section One leader from the Far East spoke. “You are saying that THRUSH has used these devices to control people? To read minds and direct their actions? These drugs are meant to weaken a person’s will to the point that they are suggestible to their manipulations.”

“Long term exposure to the device will actually implant a thought or compulsion in a limited way, yes,“ Illya explained. “They also have a design to induce illness with a similar device. They didn’t think that it worked on a large enough scale or fast enough, hence the drugs. Unfortunately for several hundred people in their test area, the drugs were too strong. The drug rendered the population malleable, yes. However it also left them with no will or independent thought whatsoever. And the secondary drug that was intended for the person who would direct the controlled population was even more of a failure. Instead of giving the controller the ability to read the minds of the persons to be controlled, it seems to have induced schizophrenia. The only test subject we could observe cannot give us any useful information.”

Section One Number One from the South American office was next to ask a question. “They planned to use the large machine to manipulate the entire region? How were they going to administer the drug?”

“The same way they did in the small villages.” Napoleon said. “They were planning to put it in the water supply and use the controlled population to then use the drug on anyone they did not catch with the water supply. They would then continue to dose the public as often as was needed if the drug wore off or if they couldn’t maintain control simply with the machine. They were trying to make a drug strong enough to gain control with one dose and keep control with the ongoing sound waves emitted by the devices they would place in major population centers.” Napoleon waited for a moment and then added, “There were some notes about an aerosol they wanted to work on later once they perfected the formula.”

“And do these enslavement machines work, even without the drugs?” This from Number One in Africa.

“In a very limited capacity a small device like this,” Illya pointed out the one on the table, “will work for implanting a thought, but it can be blocked easily by metal. If you are in a room insulated with steel, for example, the waves emitted by this machine will not be able to get through.”

“That is why they had to blow a hole in the mountain.” The European leader said.

“Yes, sir.” Illya did his best not to smile because it was the very explosives that THRUSH had planned to use to make that hole that had been the destruction of the compound instead. He did so love using THRUSH against itself.

“And our agents?” Waverly asked. “Were they compromised by this technology or something else?”

“We found no note of them at all. There is nothing in these notebooks mentioning their capture or interrogation.”

“What of the villages, were there no survivors whatsoever?” The European Number One asked.

“No Mr. Beldon, we found none.” Napoleon said. 

Illya’s expression remained impassive.

Mr. Waverly picked up his pipe and struck a match, concentrating on lighting the tobacco. When he had puffed it to life, he looked around the table at the men gathered there. “Gentlemen, we will be taking this research home with us and devising a way to counteract it, should THRUSH continue to pursue this project. I will keep you informed of our progress.” He studied the faces of the men a moment more. “Lunch is being served in the conference room next door.” He rose and went to a panel on one side of the room and triggered it, opening a door to the next room where several UNCLE staff were setting out dishes and tableware. “I will join you shortly.” With that he dismissed his fellow Number One leaders. They filed their way into the room and Waverly shut the door, taking the lighted box from his pocket that they had been using the day before.

“That explains how you snuck up on us yesterday.”

“I am sorry about that. It was newly installed and I wanted to try it out.” Waverly indulged in a grin, showing that he was as prone to loving the game as much as his fellow section leaders and their disguises. “You are protecting Garta from our fellow agents?”

Napoleon shrugged. “We have no way of contacting her easily and she was not a victim of the drug, only of its result.” Napoleon stopped, not sure what more to add about the urge to keep her part in the tale from the others.

“Another of your hunches perhaps?”

Napoleon did not answer as Waverly’s communicator buzzed before he could continue. A sweet Italian voice informed Waverly that the patient was again awake.

  


“Mr. Solo, shall we?” Waverly went to the door. 

Napoleon looked at everything on the conference table and then at the panel, the other side of which the luncheon was taking place.

“Go Napoleon, I will pack all this up.” Illya said.

With a nod, Napoleon followed Waverly out the door.

Waverly opened the door and waved Napoleon into the room, shutting the door after him, waiting outside. Napoleon approached the bed, speaking softly in Rom, a simple greeting.

The man in the bed opened his eyes, looking around the room and then settled his gaze on Napoleon. “So quiet, so blessedly quiet.” He spoke in English this time. “No birds pecking, no little birds stealing.”

“I want you to know that the counting house has fallen.” Napoleon sat at the bedside as he had the day before.

The man studied him, eyes showing his weariness but for a moment sharp with interest. “You found the center? You found the monster in the maze?”

“My partner and I did, yes.”

“You slew the minotaur? Hansel and Gretel, the breadcrumbs, little birds eat the bread, lost all lost.”

“The witch is in the oven, as it should be.”

“Little birds are everywhere. Black birds eat the crumbs, follow, listen, everywhere. Everywhere.”

“Shh, shh. Rest. The mountain fell in. It is all gone. Just rest now, no birds will find you here.”

The man smiled at Napoleon. “You do not know, good sir, you do not know. There are so many of them. Bake them in a pie and still more will fly. I heard them. I heard them singing supper in the pie.” the man closed his eyes and in a few moments his breathing eased into sleep. Napoleon waited but he did not wake again.

“Anything?” Waverly asked when Napoleon emerged from the room.

“Nothing helpful. I might have reassured him that the compound is gone, I can’t tell if he understood.”

“I am sure underneath his garbled mental state he understood you, it was good of you to try.”

“I’m not sure, Mr. Waverly. He is still very unsettled, or at least unsettling.”

“Do not trouble yourself so, you have done all you could do. Certainly more than we had any right to expect.” Waverly led him back to the conference room and they found Illya packed and ready to go, more than ready.

“Gentlemen, your work here is finally done.”

EPILOGUE

Once again Illya and Napoleon followed Alexander Waverly up to the door of the house where they had spent the night. The door was opened by two men, the same agents that had doubled for Illya and Napoleon on their arrival in Italy. Both had grown beards and smiled at the surprise the other agents registered on seeing them.

“Ready for another switch, then?” The dark haired man asked.

“I think we are.” Napoleon answered.

“These gentleman will take your place as they did before,” Waverly explained. “They will disappear back into the woodwork from which you arrived yesterday.”

The blond agent spoke up, “Your suitcases are upstairs. We couldn’t tell which bedrooms you used so both are in the first bedroom on the right.”

Illya and Napoleon went up the stairs while the other two agents followed Waverly into the library.

  


“I am sure you already know a good tailor Mr. Solo, I suggest a visit is in order.” Waverly chuckled.

“It seems that too much clean living is good for the waistline but very bad for the wardrobe.” Napoleon replied. He had tightened his belt an extra two notches but his suit still hung on him like a sack. Illya had fared no better. Already wiry, his suit looked like something originally fit for an older wider brother.

“We have a flight to catch and these men would like to be on their way, if you would hand over your packs.”

Both Illya and Napoleon held out their worn backpacks.

“Is there anything you need from them?” The blond asked.

“I have everything that is mine, thank you.” Illya said. 

Napoleon nodded his agreement. “Watch that bedroll, it’s lumpy if you don’t shake it good before rolling it back up.”

“Noted.” The brunet smiled and shouldered the pack.

“Dirty clothes are rolled at the bottom of the pack, clean are on top.”

“Very efficient, thank you.” The brunet looked to Waverly who nodded and the other two agents left the room, presumably to change. 

“You have secured the THRUSH material.”

“Yes sir,” Illya nodded to the locked suitcase that had been empty on the bed with their own suitcases. Illya held out the keys to the case and Waverly took them, handing him a passport in exchange, then turning to Napoleon and giving him one as well.

Napoleon opened it and checked the stamps. “Hey look partner,” he held out the booklet, “I’ve been in Frankfurt for a week.”

“As have I,” Illya held up his own passport.

“We are flying to Stuttgart where you will be staying for two days before boarding a train to Zurich and then a flight to New York is booked for you.”

“And our assignment?”

“There is no assignment Mr. Kuryakin, you are on leave.”

“Yes sir.”

“Thank you Mr. Waverly.”

“Your apartments have been looked after while you were gone and a car will be waiting for you when you arrive in New York. I expect to see you back at headquarters in a week.”

***

“You know something Illya, I miss the horses.”

Illya took a shot at the THRUSH that was trying to sneak up on them and ducked back behind the scant cover of the crates they were trapped behind.

“It was a pretty cushy assignment; sleeping on pallets in a tent, riding through endless forest on horseback, horrifying mass graves, diabolical plots for world domination and no plumbing. There is so much to recommend it.” Illya checked around the crate, no THRUSH could be seen. “More pressure Napoleon, the gunshot was through and through but you don’t have that much blood to spare.” 

“Yes Mother.” Napoleon gritted his teeth and pressed harder on his upper arm.

“Let’s go if we’re going.” Illya hauled Napoleon up to a crouching run and they headed for the warehouse doors.

When they were well away from the threat of more shooting, Illya pulled the car over and checked the bandage he’d slapped in place and tied with a ripped off shirt sleeve. “I think you’ll live, this time.”

“Thanks, partner.” Napoleon was quiet until they got to the garage at UNCLE headquarters. In the elevator on the way to Medical he finally asked the question that had been bothering him. “Illya, how did you find me?”

“I don’t know, Napoleon. I just did.” Illya wasn’t about to mention way the sunlight seemed to turn silver when he drew closer to Napoleon’s hiding place in the warehouse.

Napoleon thought about saying something about the way he knew Illya would find him in time, a conviction he couldn’t shake despite the fact that he knew Illya was staking out a location across town. He decided to chalk it up to simple faith in his partner and ignore the way he could feel Illya approach from the harbor side of the building, that had to have been the blood loss making him imagine things that couldn’t be there.

Illya got his partner down to the Medical Section and waited while the nurses and doctors patched and prodded and Napoleon argued and insisted. It was the same argument they both made when forced into the care of Medical. Illya wondered if their aversion to the place really had increased since their time in the THRUSH compound or if it just seemed that way to him. At times like this, sitting in the windowless hall surrounded by the metal walls deep underground, he remembered the endless halls of metal rooms and the last notebook that had detailed how the THRUSH scientists had killed test subjects in each room, sealing them after removing the body and trying to contact and control the spirits they thought were trapped there. He wondered if those experiment results had been faked or if he and Napoleon had opened every door in that place and set free a trapped soul. An involuntary shiver went down his spine, like a grey goose over his grave as his mother would say.

“Mr. Kuryakin, your partner is asking for you.”

Illya looked up at the doctor. “Thank you. Which room?”

“Room six. Try to talk him into staying, will you?”

Illya simply made a harrumphing sound which the doctor could interpret any way he liked. _‘Not on your life,’_ Illya thought to himself, wondering if Napoleon had vodka in his freezer or if they would have to stop by his place before he took Napoleon home and watched over him while he recovered from the bullet that hadn’t killed him. This time. 

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies for any butchering of foreign languages (and dood, if you speak Romani you should TOTALLY tell me! I will fix!) and for anyone interested in the actual information regarding the real research that my fictional BS is based on, there is a Video! (hosted by Roger Moore!) and you can find it [here](http://www.hulu.com/watch/94807/paranormal-tv-kgb-psychic-files). The part about the disease inducing machine is at the beginning of the programme and the part with the ghost stuff is at about one hour fortyfive minutes. Everything else is my imagination. There was actual research done on machine induced telepathy, but I fudged it for the story, though fact may be much stranger than fiction in this case.


End file.
